Steve, I read it in the “Post.” Also, fix your profile of him. He throws his fastball in the 93-96 range. If you got that info from John Sickels, he was wrong; he confused Beam and Bean and had Beam as a guy with an under-average fastball. The exact opposite is true.

baileywalk – where did you read he was recalled?

The stars aligned or something, because my boy T.J. Beam got called up to the club. Boy, I nearly had an orgasm when I read that this morning. (It’ll be pretty embarrassing after all this if he comes up and bombs, huh?) I know it’s only for a few days, and I know that Joe Torre doesn’t “trust” him and won’t use him unless the score is, oh, 22-1, but I just hope he can show Torre a little something like Smithy showed him a little something and stick with the team.

The bullpen is crowded right now. And Dotel will make it more crowded. In a perfect world Proctor would take over the longman role (which he is so good at) and they would dump Small back in AAA. But as it is, the only guy who doesn’t have a big-league contract in there is Smith, and Myers and Villone aren’t going anywhere (which they shouldn’t). So if T.J. sticks, it’s at the expense of Smithy, which is counterproductive, though he is more talented.

If ever there was a perfect time to come up as a pitcher, it’s during interleague (for an AL guy). These NL lineups don’t exactly inspire fear.

I wish I could predict what will happen next with A-Rod. But, who knows? Talent says that he won’t hit .156 forever. But, the mind is a powerful tool – and a powerful weapon too. For all we know, he could end up having to go on the DL if this gets too bad.

Well Steve, time for YOU to predict what will happen with Arod.

I think it’s just a 2 week (horrible) slump. If it isn’t a temporary slump it goes against all history I know of for hitters – an all time great hitter having a month decent enough to be voted player of the month and then falling off the cliff never to do anything even mediocre after that.

Regarding Wright – he’s the fifth starter. It’d be nice if he could go more innings per start but I think when he pitches you need to be ready and treat Wright and another pitcher (Small in games Wright doesn’t pitch well?)as your pitchers to get through 7 or so.

A pitcher like Davis wouldn’t be much of an upgrade but if he replaced Wright in the rotation you’d only be buying 2 innings a turn. What would you give up for that? And why would a team give up one of their regular starters in mid-June?

It’s a good thought but unless Cashman is able to glom on to a Chacon-Small windfall like last year my bigger fear is one of the starters going down with an injury. It’s Wang I worry about. He has a history of physical problems and he’s on pace to pitch more innings this year than he ever has.

Yes, try to pick up a mediocre starter but not to necessarily replace Wright but for the inevitable next injury.

I kind of thought Bernie had a little left in the tank when spring training started, and then he hit a couple bombs in the World Baseball Classic (it’s somewhere on this site if you don’t believe me:). But I didn’t really think he still had an almost classic Bernie tear left in him–the comparison I would make would be Tino last year. But hopefully he won’t go completely to hell like Tino did last year when the run was over. Also, I figured that Bernie would perform better by being the DH and staying rested, which isn’t really how things have played out so far.

Someone on the Banter compared A-Rod to Knoblauch, and I’m thinking that is starting to sound about right as far as his mental state. The good news is I think he will turn it around and be fine–slumps happen and some guys look worse than others. The bad news is my opinion is worth squat!

I’m telling you right now, NO ONE better say they had Bernie’s back from the start of the season. Because no one thought he had anything left. We all thought he was done. I thought he should only bat righty, and that he was done as a switch-hitter, but, boy, am I glad to be wrong. Amazingly, Bernie has picked up for the slumping A-Rod.

This was a real step-back game for Wright. His velocity was down and he was very hittable — against a team that doesn’t have many good hitters. In most of his games, he can’t consistently throw strikes and he gets his pitch count up high. Tonight, he was just giving up hits on a mediocre fastball (the pitcher very nearly blew the game open). Plus, at this point, not only does he normally drive his pitch count so high he can’t pitch the sixth, but today Torre/Maz decided even with a LOW pitch count he couldn’t pitch the sixth. Which makes him somewhat useless. Yeah, it’s better to have five strong innings than none, but these were five weak innings. If he doesn’t pitch five lights-out innings, there is no point in starting him.

It’s too bad this game gave A-Rod so many chances to fail. First he’s brushed back, disrespected by a rookie, and strikes out. And then twice more, with men on, he doesn’t come through. It’s almost unreal.

The worst part of the night was seeing Farnsworth limp off the field. The last thing the Yankees can afford is another injury — especially one to a pitcher. Someone said he has back spasms, won’t be on the DL, and they will send someone down and bring up a pitcher. I hope to GOD it’s T.J. Beam — because he’s deserved it and he’ll stick. Dotel is also on the way back. He struck out three in Columbus tonight. Though people who think he’s going to go from rehab assignment to setup man are kidding themselves.

And, Steve, EVERY pitcher in MLB is a 100-pitch pitcher. It’s about what you do with those 100 pitches. Moose averages about seven innings a game. Wang just under that. It’s the rest of the staff that is killing the bullpen.

Anyway, I think Chacon will do alright tomorrow, and I’m really curious to see what Wang does — Webber dominates the NL with similar but much less stuff, so Wang should be just fine.