I was right on Mo!

***Mariano Rivera had an at-bat on Tuesday night and was told not to swing. Proud as ever, Mo took three hacks and struck out. “I told him it was insubordination,” Torre joked. “He’ll be suspended tomorrow.”***

http://www.lohud.com/blogs/2006/06/pregame-june-21-yankees-at-phillies.html

Thanks for the numbers on Mussina and the comments, I am so sick of this guy getting trashed. I think he’s a top 5 free agent Yankee signing of all time. Pettitte was known as a big game pitcher despite numerous bombs dropped, yet all of Mussina’s big games are swept under the rug. Clemens wasn’t near the pitcher Mussina has been (as the numbers bear out above, and Moose really deserved the Cy Young when Clemens won it for the Yanks). The only thing Mussina has going against him is unusually bad luck.

NEW YORK YANKEES
CAREER
2001-2005

ERA vs the league average displayed only–not a sorting criteria
GAMES displayed only–not a sorting criteria
NEUTRAL WINS displayed only–not a sorting criteria

RSAA………………………RSAA……ERA…….G……..N_W
1….Mariano.Rivera……………97…..2.54……325…….33
2….Mike.Mussina……………..62…..0.64……155…….69
3….Tom.Gordon……………….39…..2.13……159…….17
4….Andy.Pettitte…………….35…..0.67…….86…….41
5….Roger.Clemens…………….34…..0.60…….95…….38
6….Mike.Stanton……………..25…..1.33……183…….16
T7…Orlando.Hernandez…………19…..0.61…….56…….19
T7…David.Wells………………19…..0.55…….62…….26
9….Randy.Johnson…………….17…..0.57…….34…….14
10…Ramiro.Mendoza……………15…..0.80……119…….14
11…Jon.Lieber………………..2…..0.31…….27…….11

(SBE)

apologies for the formatting – best I can do.

Why is it that everyone holds their breath with Moose, expecting him to fail, and then when he has a few bad games everyone goes into “I told you so” mode? “I told you he’d fall apart…” Give it a rest.
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Good question. I don’t know why either. What I do know is that he has done a lot better in his Yankee career than people give him credit.

Torre should have ordered him to stand there for three pitches and not risk any injury.
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Every time you step on the field, you risk injury. I wouldn’t sweat it too much.

Why is it that everyone holds their breath with Moose, expecting him to fail, and then when he has a few bad games everyone goes into “I told you so” mode? “I told you he’d fall apart…” Give it a rest. His start wasn’t bad last night. He clearly threw that pitch to Howard in the first RIGHT OVER THE PLATE because he got skunked on a strike-three call before that. By the way, where is Torre to get on the ump for that? Or where is Posada to calm Moose down? That home run was so inevitable I wasn’t the least bit surprised. It seemed to be developing the whole inning.

The second home run was just good hitting by Howard, taking a ball low and outside and smacking it the other way.

Otherwise, I think Moose gave up only one other hard-hit ball. I know people are getting nervous and are going back to disliking Moose (people dislike him for some reason), but I still think he’s fine. And ponder THIS question: where would they be this year without him?

Torre once again leaves me scratching my head. He uses Villone to start an inning. It’s known that Villone can get out both righties and lefties. Villone works one scoreless inning. They bring him back. He gets two outs (and hits a guy). Why does Torre then run in Proctor to pitch to the righty? VILLONE HAS BEEN GETTING OUT RIGHTIES ALL YEAR. Why does he continue to do this? Why does he have no trust for Villone? He brings in Proctor who walks a man with four straight pitches. And then Myers comes in and gives up another big hit (so he’s faced two big-time lefties in big spots and couldn’t get either one of them out). Beam then comes in to get Rowand. Considering how good Villone has been this year, why not just leave him in?

I wasn’t crazy about Mo pitching two, but I guess in the end it made sense. This was an important game. Mo’s not a kid anymore, though. And watching him swing like that made me want to throw up.

It’s obvious that the key to the lineup is Johnny Damon. He has to get on base more consistently — especially if he’s leading off an inning. When he gets on base, more than likely something will happen behind him.

It was also good to see Melky get that hit, but what in the world is Joe thinking not asking him to bunt? It worked out better that he didn’t, but when a first-year guy is slumping that bad, let him help the team with a bunt.

Tomorrow’s a big day for Wright. He has to pitch in a bandbox with a bunch of good lefties coming after him. If he goes out there and gives them six innings of three-earned-run ball, I think they’d take it.

I went with my friend, a Phillies fan, and when Mo came up he said the same thing. I think that would have been a little too clever. If you do that and then the next guy up cranks one out, you’re down by 4 and the game is definitely over.

I couldn’t see the game (thanks, EI, for having blacked out Detroit, Cleveland and Cincy games scheduled). With the Mo situation, would it have made sense for Philly to walk him, and thus make him stay out on the base paths (and possibly have to do some running)?

I was at the game last night. The entire stadium, which was probably about half Yankees fans, was waiting for another Howard bomb.

And I was so surprised to see Mo bat that I took a picture of it. Not sure if you could see/hear it on TV, but when he walked back to the dugout he got a huge round of applause. Even the Phillies fans were cheering for him. It was a nice moment.

Moose was fine except for the HR balls. Nobody was really smacking it. The hits were, for the most part, grounders up the middle. It’s a shame to see him “fall from grace.” The pen did a great job limiting the damage (save Proctor).

I wasn’t exactly impressed with the outs Villone recorded, but hey, an out is an out. He did a pretty solid job tonight after the first batter. If Scottie doesn’t suck so bad, he probably doesn’t get a run charged to him. It took the hammer of God to get Howard out last night. He was all over Moose and Myers.