Soriano: Hitters, Not Pitchers, Yanks Problem & It Doesn’t Bother Him To Miss Games
Via Chad Jennings –
From the bad to the bizarre, Rafael Soriano is going to see Dr. Ahmad tomorrow. His elbow felt tight again this afternoon and he had to cut his bullpen session short. Girardi seemed legitimately concerned about his setup man, who said he felt better today than last week, and who said he felt “a lot different” from his injury plagued 2008 season.
Of all the things he said, though, tonight’s Soriano interview will be remembered for three things, all of them suggesting he skipped the media training session this spring.
At one point Soriano said he had been advised to take a week or two off, but when asked who gave him the advice, he said it was team vice president Felix Lopez, who Soriano had been talking to pregame. The Yankees later clarified that Lopez had been acting as a sort of intermediary for the training staff. Maybe that’s explainable, but two other comments suggest Soriano will need to apologize more than Jorge Posada.
Asked whether it bothers him to not be able to pitch, Soriano threw his lineup under the bus: “I don’t think the bullpen be the problem right now. I think it be the hitters. That thing happens sometimes. Whatever we have to do, make a good game and see what happens. One of these days, everything be better.”
Given a second chance to answer essentially the same question, Soriano was asked how much it’s bothered him to miss games against Boston and Tampa Bay: “Not at all, to me,” he said. “Because in the situation, how the team looks be the situation when I’m supposed to be in the game, the eighth. Everybody see, (the team is) losing two, three runs. I don’t think it be that situation that I would be in the bullpen, that I would be in the game.”
Thank you Hal Steinbrenner and Randy Levine.
Holy F-K!!!! I hate this guy so much. What a d-khead!!!!
Garcia wrote:
This might be the first time that you and I agree on something.
Soriano was a bad signing for baseball reasons. His personality makes it even worse.
Given modern bullpen usage, he’s right. If there isn’t a save situation in the 8th inning, chances are you won’t see Soriano, unless he needs the work.
Not sure why it’s a big deal to say what’s already common knowledge.
Rafael Soriano wrote:
There ya go.
Raf wrote:
Being quite literal, yes, perhaps Soriano isn’t saying anything too terribly groundbreaking.
But it’s poor form for a pitcher — one who hasn’t performed well in the few occasions he’s been able to pitch — to call out his teammates for their own poor performance.
It doesn’t have to be incorrect for it to be inappropriate.
Here are our “shut-down 8th inning guy’s” numbers so far this season:
15 innings
9 ERs
11 BBs
10 Ks
5.40 ERA
1.73 WHIP
.268 BAA
Guess what Rafael…you ARE part of the problem.
MJ Recanati wrote:
And Joba, lest we forget. But this guy is making Joba look like the Princess Kate’s Hot Sister Pippa.
Garcia wrote:
LOL, not quite.
I know what you mean…but I still hate #62 more.
I’m kind of on the fence on this one. On the one hand, I agree with Raf, it is common knowledge that the offense is our achilles heel right now. But on the other hand, I agree with MJ, it is bad form to call out your teammates like that.
I was not against signing this guy like some of you were but I was very worried about his personality and his attitude and he has done nothing so far to extinguish those fears.
@ LMJ229:
@ MJ Recanati:
I really don’t think he was calling out his teammates. Just stating the obvious. “The offense is struggling, but it’ll get better” is basically what he said.
Ask him in Spanish, I bet you get a different or a more elaborate answer.
Raf wrote:
It’s generally poor form to even “state the obvious” when: (a) you’re a pitcher talking about an aspect of the team that you have nothing to do with and (b) when your own performance has been below average (and that’s being kind).
Raf wrote:
I heard others make this statement on the Michael Kay show the other day. It’s possible, no doubt about it. But it doesn’t make his English comments any less inappropriate.
MJ Recanati wrote:
But it’s understandable, given that he was hemming and hawing, trying to search for the proper words. Had he been smoother about it, it probably would’ve turned out differently. Worse or better, I don’t know.
At any rate, it looks like Soriano’s the type that doesn’t get caught up in histrionics (nice try by Jennings though to try to make it appear that games against the Rays and Sox are worth more), so it’s going to be interesting going forward to see how he’s going to be portrayed in the media (aloof, uncaring, lackadaisical, bad attitude, etc, etc, etc).
Raf wrote:
While I agree that part of how he’s framed is a function of being an ESL guy (English as second language) and that another unfortunate part is that Latino ballplayers going back to Clemente’s day have always been portrayed as aloof or lazy, not all of a player’s language/cultural background dictate how they’re portrayed. A player like Soriano does himself no favors with some of the choices he makes for himself.
Whether we like it or not, one has to understand how the media game is played. If you seem like you don’t care, that’s how the story unfolds. And if you’ve been tagged as difficult in previous cities — unwilling to pitch when called upon, arrogant, disrespectful — then those get carried forward to your next city too. Gary Sheffield wasn’t as bad a guy as eveyone made him out to be but he did himself no favors with some of the absolutely idiotic things he said and for his lack of accountability for some of his words or actions.
Seems to me like Soriano has some self-created issues and some media-created ones and that the combination of the two is where we’re at. He’s probably not this much of a douche, but he’s definitely got enough douche in him to make it believeable…