Tuesday, May 8, 2012

BREAKING NEWS: Andy To Start Sunday Vs. Seattle

Via Marc Carig:

"Pettitte to start Sunday"

"with the Yankees"

Cash made it official today.  Right now, Ivan Nova is scheduled to pitch Sunday, but barring injury I can't imagine he will be the one to lose his rotation spot.  That battle will be between Phil and Dave.  But it's really happening.  Andy Pettitte is going to pitch in a Major League game wearing the Yankee pinstripes again, and that's pretty cool.

Best Promotion Ever? Best Promotion Ever

I don't know much, people, but I do know this.  I have never been more upset about missing a Yankee game since I moved away from the East Coast than I am about missing tonight's game.  The New York Yankees are reinventing the stadium promotional giveaway game as we know it.

BOOM!!!  "Hand Sanitizer Keychain Day."  Are you kidding me???  Why not just give fans the keys to the locker room??  How about "Who Wants to Bat Cleanup?" Day or "Be The Bullpen Coach for the Game" Day??  I mean, look at this thing.  It's incredible!!!

 
As it is, your ticket to the game gets you first-person access to watching the historic New York Yankees play baseball.  Now you're telling me I could also be protected against all kinds of viruses and diseases that I may get from high-fiving the strangers around my in the stands AT NO EXTRA COST?!?!  That's highway robbery!

If you're reading this and planning on going to the game tonight, grab your car keys and your Yankee hat as soon as you're done and get your ass to The Stadium to make sure you're one of the first 18,000 fans in attendance in order to take advantage of this sweet deal.  Actually, scratch that.  Don't even finish reading this.  Just get to The Stadium NOW because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you don't want to miss.

/so fucking jealous

Awaiting Brett Gardner's Return

(Probably beat that out for a hit.  Courtesy of The AP)

I'm a big Brett Gardner fan, so I was all excited to write this post about how his return later this week should help spark the the team and get them back on the winning path they were on before he went down in mid-April.  But then his rehab outing got delayed by weather last night, likely pushing his whole return schedule back a day.  This gave me some time to check some numbers on what the Yankees have done with and without Gardner and I was a bit surprised at what I found.

Gardner went down on April 17th making a sliding catch in a win against the Twins.  In that game he went 2-2 with 2 doubles, 2 walks, 3 runs scored, an RBI, and the sliding catch that led to the injury to boost his season line to .321/.424/.393.  That's not too shabby and about as Gardnerish as a batting line gets, but the Yankees were only 6-5 in those 11 games that Gardner played before hitting the DL, averaging 5.18 runs/game.

Since he went on the shelf, the Yankees have used a rotating cast of characters in left field and that cast has not been nearly as productive as Gardner.  In the past 17 games, the Yankee left fielders have combined to go 11-60 at the plate (.183 BA) with 16 strikeouts to just 6 walks, 2 runs scored, and 4 RBI.  The lone bright spot in that stat line is the fact that 5 of the combined 11 hits have gone for extra bases, but the production hasn't been there.  I thought for sure this would lead to a big drop in runs scored as a team, but the average of 4.94 R/G over the past 17 games really isn't that far off from what the Yankee offense was doing with Gardner, and the 9-8 record over that span doesn't look any better or worse than the 6-5 with Garder.  So is Brett Gardner really that meaningless?