Yankees – Page 165 – Keefe To The City

Apr 7, 2016

Podcast: Andrew Rotondi

The Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the Yankees’ lineup and being worried about the health of the rotation.

Two down, 160 to go. After Tuesday’s 5-3 Opening Day loss in freezing temperatures, the Yankees bounced back with a 16-6 win over the Astros on Wednesday night to force a rubber match on Thursday at the Stadium. Hopefully, the Yankees saved some hits and runs for Mike Fiers.

Andrew Rotondi of Bronx Pinstripes joined me to talk about the Yankees’ first two games of the season, Starlin Castro’s amazing start, being worried about the health of the rotation, the frustrating Nathan Eovaldi, how the lineup should be built and what to do with Brett Gardner.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 6, 2016

Another Opening Day Debacle

Opening Day looked exactly like the wild-card game for the Yankees, as once again, both Masahiro Tanaka and the offense weren’t good enough.

The coldest I have ever been at Yankee Stadium wasn’t for a Yankees game. It was for the Rangers-Islandes outdoor game on Jan. 29, 2014. Yes, an outdoor game … in late January … at night.

Even though my feet were frozen when the Zamboni came on after the first period and my $11 beer had turned to slush well before that and my fingers and toes were so cold that I stood in the corner of my apartment shower an hour after the game ended trying to avoid the hot water that caused the same sting sensation when both of your legs fall asleep and it hurts too much to move them, it was worth it. It was worth it because at least the Rangers won the game. They made sitting outside for three hours at the end of January for a game in which the play was so far away the puck wasn’t visible and having to freeze through intermission performances from Cee-Lo Green worth it. Because they won.

On Tuesday at the Stadium, it was freezing. Not as cold as that Rangers-Islanders game, but as cold as it could be for an April afternoon baseball game and colder than any of the previous Opening Day and Opening Night (2005) games I have sat through. With a chance to start the season with a win for the first time since 2011 and avenge the wild-card game to the same Dallas Keuchel and the Astros, the Yankees basically just continued the end of the 2015 season.

Outside of Starlin Castro’s two-run double in the second inning, the Yankees managed just three hits off of Keuchel once again with a fourth coming on a Didi Gregorius home run in the ninth in a failed comeback attempt. That’s right, a second baseman who can hit! The Yankees might have been able to use that last season when they were wasting 532 plate appearances between Stephen Drew and Brendan Ryan. Castro’s two-run double was almost enough for me to forgive Joe Girardi for hitting him eighth, one spot behind Chase Headley and six spots behind Aaron Hicks, but it wasn’t. The Yankees’ lineup against right-handed pitching needs to change and it needs to change now.

But outside of my usual Girardi lineup complaints, Masahiro Tanaka was his usual former ace self, blowing a two-run lead and lasting just 5 2/3 innings. Chasen Shreve looked like pre-September Shreve before Dellin Betances blew the game with a leadoff walk to Jose Altuve and an errant throw into Carlos Correa’s back down the first-base line. Jacoby Ellsbury and Headley combined to go 0-for-7 with three strikeouts, and after Ellsbury whined his way into this lineup way back in October, it Brett Gardner sitting Opening Day out in the same situation as the one-game playoff. But it didn’t matter that it was Gardner sitting out because when he got his chance, he struck out in his only at-bat when he pinch-hit for the hitless Hicks.

The offense was basically non-existent, the starting pitching wasn’t good enough and the bullpen couldn’t be the invincible bullpen it needs to be to make sure this season doesn’t end up as bad as 2013 and 2014 or as disappointing as 2015. It was every preseason negative fear about this team squeezed into one game. Thankfully it’s just that: one game.

There are 161 to go, but the off day tomorrow before Game 2 is going to feel as long as the six-month offseason, which just ended.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

Apr 4, 2016

Yankees-Astros Opening Day Is Wild-Card Game Part II

Opening Day for the Yankees will be a repeat of the wild-card game as they host the Astros with Masahiro Tanaka on the mound against Dallas Keuchel. Let’s just hope the 2016 season doesn’t being with the same result the 2015 season ended with after the Yankees were shut out at home.

With the Yankees and Astros opening the 2016 season on Monday in the Bronx, Ryan Dunsmore of The Crawfish Boxes joined me to talk about the wild-card game, the Astros having a true ace once again in Dallas Keuchel, watching the development of Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa and what the expectations for the Astros are following their successful season.

Keefe: I knew the Yankees were going to lose the wild-card game and every Yankees fan should have known it. Not only had the team limped to the finish line at the end of the season and blown a sizable lead in the division to the Blue Jays after the trade deadline, but they were dominated by Dallas Keuchel in June and August. In those two starts, both wins, here was Keuchel’s combined line: 16 IP, 9 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 21 K.

Sitting in Yankee Stadium during the wild-card game and watching Keuchel once again shut the Yankees down, allowing just three hits over six shutout innings with a walk and seven strikeouts was devastating. I thought if the Yankees could get Keuchel out of the game relatively early, which they did, that they could come back against the Astros’ weak bullpen, but they couldn’t even do that.

Through Keuchel’s first 47 games and 38 starts in the majors over 2012 and 2013, he was 9-18 with a 5.20 ERA. In the last two years, he’s gone 32-17 with a 2.69 ERA and won the AL Cy Young last season. After having the Roger Clemens-Andy Pettitte-Roy Oswald era and then going through a serious starting pitching drought in Houston, what’s it like to have that true ace again?

Dunsmore: It has been an absolute joy to have an ace back on the team, especially because it is Dallas Keuchel. As you referenced, Keuchel wasn’t expected to be a star at the end of those turbulent years he was pitching out of the bullpen. But he was worked his butt off perfecting his location and learning the “art of pitching”.

Keuchel will never be a flamethrower, he sits around the high 80s and the upper 90s. But what he does best is keeping the ball down and reading the batter’s swing. The scary part is that type of game translates well as Keuchel ages.

Keuchel is the perfect fit for this young, energetic team and the beard helps in the same city with James Harden.

Keefe: The Astros won Game 1 of the ALDS against the Royals. They had a 4-1 lead in Game 2 before losing 5-4. They won Game 3. They had 6-2 lead in Game with six outs to go before giving up seven runs and losing 9-6, and they had a 2-0 lead in Game 5 before eventually losing 7-2.

Were you upset after the Astros’ season came to an end, considering they held a lead in all five games and were six outs away from advancing in Game 4. Or because this version of the Astros arrived early, were you OK with the way the season ended since the team did reach the postseason and did win the wild-card game?

Dunsmore: I admit I was upset the Astros dropped the game for one reason and one reason only: the Royals didn’t hit the ball hard during the comeback during Game 4. Kansas City dinked and dunked its way to setting up the comeback. That is not to take away with the Royals, they battled in each at-bat and found a way to win.

You’re correct in your second part of the question. The ALDS loss gave the Astros experience, experience the team desperately needed. The loss will linger in the back of their minds, but losses fuel good teams like the Royals were fueled by the World Series loss the year before.

Keefe: I remember what it was like to have a first-round draft pick and shortstop finally get to the majors and be everything you imagined he would be. Carlos Correa, the 2012 first overall pick, burst onto the scene when he was called up to the Astros last season, hitting .279/.345/.512 with 22 home runs and 68 RBIs in just 99 games. He won the AL Rookie of the Year and became a catalyst at the top of the lineup for the Astros.

Correa won’t be 22 until September and is already one of the best players in the majors. Even though you had to suffer through nine postseason-less seasons, and four straight 92-plus loss seasons before last year, you’ve made it through to the other side and now get to reap the benefits of star young players. It’s easy to say it was worth it now, but when you were going through the last decade as an Astros fan, did you think you would get to see this day?

Dunsmore: I don’t think I’m a good example for your average Astros fan, I continued to watch 92-plus loss teams. So it did make things sweeter to see Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow’s plan “The Process” come full circle. It is really satisfying to see a team build a winner with prospects. The Crawfish Boxes staff has been able to watch prospects come through the system to now become key cogs in the Astros playoff team. There is more investment.

Your average Houston fan checked out for six years and didn’t come back until the final months of last season. As is the case with Houston sports not called football.

Keefe: It’s very rare that I truly like non-Yankees players, but Jose Altuve is one of those players, and he’s easily my favorite non-Yankee in the majors. To do what he does at 5-foot-6 and 165 lbs. (both of which seem like a stretch) is amazing. A career .305 hitter and three-time All-Star in five seasons, Altuve had been one the bright spot on some awful Astros teams. It seems like he’s been in the league for a decade, but he’s still just 25 and won’t turn 26 until May 6.

How long did it take you to realize how good someone of that stature could be?

Dunsmore: It honestly didn’t take long to fall in love with Jose Altuve. You can see the hustle at every moment he is on the field. He doesn’t have a gear lower than 100 percent.

He was originally told by an Astros scout to go home during international tryouts, but he returned the next day to win a contract. I think the Astros front office has to know how special Jose Altuve is since that day.

That is why the Astros have pushed him through minors from Double-A to the majors in 2011. He’s shown the hustle that everyone loves since he was still wearing those terrible black and brick uniforms.

Keefe: Last year, the Astros won the second wild card, beat the Yankees in the Bronx and had nearly beat the defending AL champions and eventual World Series champions in the ALDS. But seemingly every team in every sport suffers a devastating loss before they can eventually win and maybe what happened in Game 4 of the ALDS ends up being the Astros’ devastating loss.

The Astros were supposedly ahead of schedule with their success last season and now that the team has once again had success and has reached the postseason, their youth has experience in big spots and they’re no longer a team on the rise.

After the team’s success last season and now that they are the favorite to win the AL West, what are your expectations for the 2016 Astros?

Dunsmore: I expect the Astros to make the playoffs. I won’t say they are AL favorites or World Series favorites. The team seems like a few developing prospects (flash to A.J. Reed and Colin Moran) away from winning it all. The pitching staff has a high floor, but isn’t blowing anyone away if Lance McCullers is on the shelf for a long time.

If Houston wins the division, I will be happy and roll the dice from there.

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 4, 2016

Podcast: Evan Drellich

The Houston Chronicle Astros beat writer joined me to talk about the wild-card game, Dallas Keuchel and the Astros’ youth.

The 2016 season will being the same way the 2015 season ended for the Yankees with Masahiro Tanaka on the mound against Dallas Keuchel and the Astros at Yankee Stadium. Everyone expected the wild-card game to go the way it did in October and nearly six months after the Yankees were shut out by the Astros in the one-game playoff, the Yankees have the opportunity to change the narrative when it comes to facing Keuchel.

Houston Chronicle Astros beat writer Evan Drellich joined me to talk about the Yankees-Astros wild-card game, the emergence of Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel over the last two seasons, the Astros’ impressive middle infield with Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa, the perception of Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez in Houston and how the Astros will handle being expected to win following last season’s success.

Podcasts • Yankees

Apr 1, 2016

Podcast: Chad Jennings

The Journal News Yankees beat writer joined me to talk about the Yankees’ pitching concerns and the plan for Rob Refsndyer.

Opening Day can’t get here fast enough. After a relatively healthy spring training, the Yankees have endured some late-spring injuries to their bullpen, which has changed the 25-man roster to start the season. But in bigger news, the starting pitcher owed $25 million this season has won the No. 5 starter “competition”.

Chad Jennings, the Yankees beat writer for The Journal News and the LoHud Yankees Blog, joined me to talk about the Yankees’ rotation and now bullpen concerns, what the plan is for Rob Refsndyer if there even is one, how the top of the lineup should be constructed against right-handers and left-handers, the need for the aging middle of the order to produce and stay healthy, which players could see midseason call-ups and expectations for this season.