The problem that I have with this victory is that it is an empty one.The Yanks and the Jays had no business winning this game.A loss would have been a better thing for the long term because this hyped up win camouflaged a lot of problems:

1 Wang.Wang was terrible.The Jays have a little above average offense(that’s being kind) and when Cabrera dropped that ball,the roof came off!There is something wrong with Wang’s mechanics and that has to be sorted out.

2 Cano.Cano bunting?Why is someone of his “caliber” asked to bunt?He shouldn’t be bunting BUT when he did he messed up.His Baseball IQ is starting to seem to be quite low relative to his raw talent.

3 The Bullpen(Farnsworth);This game became reachable for the Yanks(yeah BJ Ryan is one of the best,but hey this was a crazy game) because of some dumb luck.Stairs ground rule double saved Farnsworth’s bacon,that’s a bigger hit otherwise.Melky,who is both goat and hero in this game made a great catch to minimize the damage.In real terms however ,Farnsworth did a terrible job and that is not a good sign for the rest of the season.
4The Texas Rangers style play.The Jays have the best pitching in baseball,but they were off for a couple of games.The problem is that the Yankees won this game with the 5 home run concept instead of using smart defense with timely hitting and great pitching.It reminded me more of the Texas Rangers circa the 90s versus the Dynasty Yankees of the 90s-00s.

5 The playoffs,one can never count the Yankees out,so let’s say they make the playoffs.Are they gonna be able to play this sloppy brand of baseball in October?Heck no!This to me was not the best win this season BUT the worst why?If they lost this battle,more of these shortterm problems would be resolved BUT now,there seems to jubilation but it needs reflection.The Yankees were extremely lucky to win this game(the Jays would have if they had won it too) but these same problems will persist.

It was funny to note that Sterling,Waldman and Francesa were resigned to the fact the Yankees would lose it.Ryan is no chump,but hey anything can happen that’s why the ball is round.It was nice that they won,but it obscured how badly they played and that is more potentiously dangerous in winning a battle than winning the war.

He did look like it wasn’t his first dance, so I’m not really surprised. I always find it amusing when somebody charges the mound only to get there and have no idea what to do next. Crisp was clearly not in that category.

hobbitters,
From the brawl, would you have guessed that Coco won 17 amateur fights, all by KO? That was being reported by both Boston papers this morning. He definitely didn’t come out to play patty cake.

And Shields made no bones about his intent afterwards. It surely would have been smarter for the second best starter, entrusted to try to avoid a sweep, to have waited til the third time through the lineup to dust Crisp. And you can look for Crawford and Iwamura to miss time too. Apparently there was scratching and hair pulling go on under the pile.

i really doubt it’s Wang inability to K hitters that has him struggling. his k/9 has gone up 3 straight years and is well above his career avg.

his biggest problem is control/command. along with his k/9 rising, his bb/9 and Fly ball rates have risen the last 3 seasons. his BAA, BABIP and FIP are all in line with his career averages. this jives with my eyes: he’s doesn’t have the command/control right now he did earlier (notably that CG in boston). his sinkers are too high and he’s walking too many. whether that’s something to be concerned about (injury) or just a slump i dont know.

Ray Murphy had another theory about Wang in the 2007 Ron Shandler Baseball Forecaster. His admittedly small sample size analysis seemed to indicate that Wang has the ability to strike out batters at a higher rate, but chooses to try to induce the ground ball in typical situations (speculation : to reduce pitch count). In situations where a ground ball out wouldn’t suffice, he was more likely to go for a strikeout…at least according to the analysis. I can’t say it was a very strong or convincing analysis, but it is was an interesting read.

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I was watching the Sox-Rays game on mlb.tv (on the free trial). It was an odd little spat.

I give Shields slight credit for not headhunting, but if you’re going to hit him, why in the world would you do it in the second inning? Of course, nobody but Shields can say for sure, but I feel pretty confident that was intentional. I’m not sure it warranted charging the mound at that point, but if somebody plunked me in a pretty obvious manner, I can’t say I wouldn’t have.

I scored the initial fight 10-8 Crisp. Not only did he dodge the initial wild roundhouse from Shields, but it looked like he got a few shots in before Navarro caught up. Shields gets a point deducted for throwing hay with his pitching hand. The correct procedure would have been to use the glove to the face with the pitching hand and an inside hook with the non-pitching hand.

I think Gomes just likes hitting people. I see him getting a long visit to the principal’s office. I couldn’t tell from the video, but Crawford was mentioned as jumping in as well. I didn’t see anything from Casey either, but there was a whole lot going on.

As for the brawl, I think we’re actually looking at Gomes getting as bad a penalty as anyone, maybe worse even. Around five games for Coco and Shields, at least that many for Gomes. I didn’t see Casey take a shot at Shields but if it happened, I’m sure he’ll get three. As we all know, there will be penalties for things that no one really sees on the video.

I’ve agreed with Lee for a long time that it was unlikely for Wang to have continued success, for the reason he mentioned. But I was rather surprised when I took a look at his stats yesterday.

His strikeout ratio has been rising for three years, and is over 5 to date this year. I think its hard to point to his K rate as the reason unless the K rate had never moved off the very low numbers he had posted before.

But look at his ground out to fly out ratio:
3.08, 2.84, 2.36, 1.69.

Make that a pretty pedestrian 1.69 to date.

Quite simply, Wang has been elevating more and more and its gotten worse this season. Whether that’s due to an injury or not I don’t know, but I’d be more concerned about his groundball ratio than his strikeout ratio right now.

Anyway – a helluva win to pull out, from the 7-2 deficit to Farnsworth giving up the insurance run to two outs, no one on in the ninth. So congratulations, enjoy it, and we’ll see if the Yanks can build on this. KC coming to the Stadium is seemingly the perfect opportunity to get some distance over .500 but baseball is a funny game, like it was yesterday.

It will be interesting to see how Bob Watson chooses to punish the Sox as well as the Rays. If it was the Yankees, we’d probably be looking at a couple lifetime bans right now.
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Agree completely. Moreover, since this is Gomes’s second? third? altercation this year, there should be a penalty for that too…but there won’t be.

The guys at River Ave attribute some of Wang’s problems to Dave Eiland. I have no idea if they’re right or wrong but count me among those that are underwhelmed with Eiland. Mel-Gator-Eiland all seem unable to make adjustments to the pitchers in their charge.

It will be interesting to see how Bob Watson chooses to punish the Sox as well as the Rays. If it was the Yankees, we’d probably be looking at a couple lifetime bans right now.