Alex Rodriguez – Page 4 – Keefe To The City

Apr 27, 2015

The Yankees and Rays Will Be in Tight Race All Year

After nearly a month of baseball, every team in the AL East is in a battle for first place and that’s likely to continue for the entire season.

This season was supposed to be a down year for the AL East, but after three weeks, it’s been the best division in baseball. Two games separate the five teams and the Yankees and Rays are atop the division at 11-8 with a three-game series between the two teams starting on Monday.

With the Yankees and Rays meeting in the Bronx for the first time this season, Daniel Russell of DRaysBay joined me to talk about losing the Rays’ impressive start, Rays fans’ perspective of A-Rod, Chris Archer’s dominance of the Yankees and how the AL East will play out this summer now that both teams have seen every team in the division.

Keefe: Since the last series between the two teams, the Rays have gone 5-1, winning a series against the Red Sox and sweeping the Blue Jays. After their hot start, the Rays were recently 6-8 and I thought it might be the start of their decline with the roster turnover and injuries they are dealing with, but they have rebounded to share the lead in the division with the Yankees.

For a team that was expected to have to win a lot of 2-1 and 3-2 games this year, they have done that, but they have also had no trouble putting up big numbers here and there in the first month of the season.

Given the names in their lineup, the Rays’ offense was supposed to be the weak link for 2015, but it has managed to do just enough to win games with great pitching. I guess we should all just be used to that by now?

Russell: The Rays continue to be a team built off run prevention and just-enough offense, but you’re right, the offense has done well. Most of that comes from matching up well in the handedness department. Guys like David DeJesus, Tim Beckham, Brandon Guyer and Logan Forsythe have been critical.

For any team to find success, there needs to be a little luck involved, and the Rays have done particularly well in their pinch-hitting department. That’s remarkable, as the team topped out its disabled list at 12 guys on Wednesday among several other playing-hurt guys like Souza, Cabrera, and Jennings.

Now as the starters come back into the fold, it will certainly be interesting to see what the Rays do with the guys off the bench who’ve delivered.

A lot of that has to do with taking walks as well, which we are all well acquainted with in the division. The only three teams in the American League with 10 percent walk rates are the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox, but it’s true the offense has been putting up strong numbers.

Tampa Bay chips away at their opponents, and it’s been paying off. Their 113 wRC+ is fifth in the American League, ahead of New York at sixth (107).

Keefe: Evan Longoria hasn’t really been a part of those big numbers. He’s hitting .306/.413/.468, but he also has just one home run and four RBIs, which puts him in the Jacoby Ellsbury Club (one home run, two RBIs) early this season.

Where has Longoria’s power been? Do you ever worry about him?

Russell: Longoria has been ridiculously productive this month, so it doesn’t bother me yet that he hasn’t homered since opening day. All 19 games of the season thus far have been played in domes or under roofs, so the longballs will come.

In the mean time, Longo has a 14.7 percent walk rate and a 14.7 percent strikeout rate, while batting a .306 AVG at a 152 wRC+. It’s too soon to panic.

Keefe: The Yankees went to Tampa as a bad baseball team. They couldn’t hit or pitch with any consistency and their defense and base running was atrocious. They were 3-6 before the first game of that three game series, but then everything changed on that Friday night. Everything changed when Alex Rodriguez took over the game.

A-Rod finished 3-for-4 with two home runs and four RBIs and hit the go-ahead single in the top of the eighth in the Yankees’ win. Since that night, the Yankees have gone 8-2 to climb to the top of the AL East.

Last night on Sunday Night Baseball against the Mets, A-Rod got the Yankees started with an opposite-field home run, his fifth of the season, just two weeks after saving the Yankees’ season on Sunday Night Baseball against the Red Sox with a first-inning, bases-clearing double.

I am a huge A-Rod fan and supported, mainly because he has been treated so much worse and differently than other PED users, but also because he helps the team win. From an outsider’s perspective and from someone who watched their team lose a game single-handedly because of him, what are you feelings on A-Rod?

Russell: I’m not all Rays fans, I’m sure the fan base hates him, but what I love about baseball – and sports in general – is entertainment and narrative. A-Rod getting clean, then coming back and being the dominant baseball player he always was supposed to be, is just pure entertainment.

The Yankees winning just makes me hate the Yankees more. That sort of passion is reserved to the laundry for me.

Keefe: For the second series this year, the Yankees will thankfully miss Chris Archer as he pitched the day before the start of both series.

In six career starts against the Yankees, Archer is 5-0 with 1.93 ERA. Outside of Felix Hernandez, I think Archer is the active pitcher with the most dominant performances against the Yankees. So of course I’m ecstatic we won’t see him again this week.

What makes Archer so special? Is he considered to be the ace of the staff with Cobb and Moore still out, and is he the ace even with them back?

Russell: Archer can thrive on two pitches two times through the lineup. Thanks to some added strength this off-season he’s pushing 98 with the fastball and has a wipe out slider. When the third time comes around, he introduces the change and no one knows what to do with it. It’s a joy to watch.

He’s also an intelligent kid, a big personality, and someone who constantly gives back to the community. He signed a longterm deal thankful for everything the club has done for him.

They don’t make ’em like Archer too often.

Keefe: The Yankees and Rays are tied atop the AL East at 11-8 with the entire division separated by two games. I have a feeling it’s going to be like that the entire season with all five teams in the race and no one really pulling away and riding and hiding for the summer with the division lead.

What are your early thoughts on the division now that you have seen the Rays play all the teams?

Russell: I’ll agree I expected the division to be pretty tight, I don’t really see any club pulling ahead. New York and Toronto are susceptible to injury, the Orioles and Red Sox to pitching problems and Tampa Bay to the offense slipping away.

The fact that the Rays have not only tread water in the division, but been able to pull ahead some of the other teams, has been really something. If this is what the Rays’ B-Team can do, I’m excited to see what happens when the injured players are re-introduced.

Blogs • Yankees

Apr 27, 2015

Subway Series Diary: Yankee Stadium

The Yankees won the first Subway Series of the season, stopped the Mets’ winning streak and reminded everyone they are and always will be New York’s team.

I love the Subway Series. I always have and always will. I don’t care if it’s not what it once was or if it doesn’t have the same appeal now that interleague play happens every day. And I certainly don’t care that Carlos Beltran thinks it’s not the same as it used to be since Carlos Beltran isn’t the same he used to be.

This Subway Series was the first one in a while that had real hype and real meaning given the state of the two teams and their first-place positions. Yankees fans wanted to let the Mets fans know that the city isn’t up for grabs and Mets fans wanted to “invade” Yankee Stadium and let Yankees fans know that the Mets might be relevant for a full season for the first time in seven years.

I decided to go to the diary format that I used for the Yankees-Red Sox series two weeks ago, which I have also used for the Subway Series in the past. Just pretend like you’re reading this in one of those black-and-white Mead composition notebooks.

FRIDAY
Last May, Jacob deGrom made his debut in the majors in the Subway Series at Citi Field and pitched seven innings, allowing one earned run on four hits with two walks and six strikeouts. He took the loss in a 1-0 game. On Friday, deGrom made his Yankee Stadium Subway Series debut and pitched five innings, allowing six earned runs on eight hits with two walks and two strikeouts. And oh yeah, three home runs.

I remember in 2012 when Yankees fans complained about the team hitting too many home runs and not being able to string together hits and rallies and manufacture runs. That Yankees team went to the ALCS. The last two years, I haven’t heard any Yankees fan complain about home runs because the team has been unable to hit them, leading to two embarrassing offensive seasons and back-to-back postseason-less seasons. It’s good to have the Bronx Bombers back.

I know Mark Teixeira has been my go-to source for “Ladies and gentlemen” for the last four or so seasons and rightfully so given his admission of breaking down, his horrific production and his long list of injuries and disabled list visits. But so far this season Teixeira has been all we can ask for of him at this point: a power-hitting first baseman, who could care less about hitting for average.

No matter what Teixeira says, he isn’t going to try to go to the other way left-handed or try to beat the shift with a bunt now and then. He’s always going to have one thing on his mind from the left side and that’s trying to reach the short porch in right. If he hits .100 from the left side and .200 overall because of it, he doesn’t care. He’s going to keep on doing it. So far his plan has worked with two home runs against deGrom (and another one on Sunday against Harvey) and after the series he had eight home runs on the year with 18 RBIs in 18 games. Project those numbers out for a full season and that’s 68 home runs and 161 RBIs in 161 games (since he had one game off). Teixeira has a better chance of hitting 68 home runs with 161 RBIs than he does of playing every game the rest of the season, but I just want him to keep hitting home runs and I will forget about him getting out four out of every five at-bats.

SATURDAY
There’s not a whole lot to talk about from Saturday’s debacle other than that Matt Harvey was great and CC Sabathia was awful. I expected Harvey, a Yankees fan from New London, Conn., to come out and pitch a great game in his first Stadium audition for his 2019 team and he did just that. He’s an elite pitcher in the league and when you face someone like him, you can be giving up seven earned runs in five innings and think you’re going to win. You can’t even give up three runs in nine innings if you really want a chance of beating him.

Sabathia is now 0-4 with a 5.96 ERA in four starts. Five days after pitching a complete game in Detroit and taking the loss in a 2-1 game, Sabathia returned to his 2013-2014 self and was embarrassed by a bad Mets lineup. I have no idea how the Mets have been able to put together the best record in baseball given their lineup. Even with the greatest team pitching, which they haven’t gotten, no team should be off to the start the Mets are with their lineup, but somehow they are. If CC is going to give us one good performance every four starts this season, it’s going to be a long summer. A very, very long summer.

SUNDAY
The rubber game. When I saw the pitching matchups for this series before it started, I expected a split in the first two games and then figured it would come down to Nathan Eovaldi-Jonathon Niese on Sunday Night Baseball, and that’s exactly what happened. Yes, I’m a genius. Now if only I could get that kind of prediction right for a 12-team MLB parlay this week.

So far Brian Cashman’s offseason trades have been disastrous. Didi Gregorius can’t hit or field or run the bases and Shane Greene is 3-1 with a 3.00 ERA. Nathan Eovaldi can’t put away hitters with two strikes despite throwing high-90s and close to 100 mph and the Yankees sure could use Martin Prado’s right-handed bat and versatility around the field. (David Phelps is whatever).

It’s hard to watch Eovaldi pitch. (Though it might not be as hard as it is to watch the Mets play defense.) He’s basically Phil Hughes 2.0 with even better stuff, which makes him even more frustrating. How can he not strike anyone out despite throwing so hard, and like Curt Schilling and John Kruk said on ESPN, why is he trying to making his best pitch of each at-bat on the first pitch of each at-bat? He is throwing 0-2 put-away pitches on the first pitch to each hitter. Where is the work Cashman preached that Larry Rothschild would do with him to turn his career around? Eovaldi is 25 and has thrown 481 2/3 innings in the majors. You would think by now he would have figured out how to strike someone out with exceptional velocity, but he hasn’t.

It’s crazy that Eovaldi doesn’t have a strikeout-per-inning this season and it’s even crazier that he has allowed 31 hits in 21 2/3 innings. How are either of those things possible for someone with his talent? How? HOW? H-O-W?

I don’t usually agree with Joe Girardi, but I loved his decision to pull Eovaldi in the fifth inning. It was sort of punishment for not getting through five and nearly blowing a three-run lead. Chasen Shreve came in and did the job and he was followed by Chris Martin and Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller, who have become the best 1-2 bullpen in the majors and have shortened Yankees games to seven innings. If the league wants shorter games, forget pitch clocks after commercial breaks and not letting hitters step out of the box if they take a pitch. Just make it a rule that if the Yankees are winning after seven innings then the game is over since it is anyway with Betances and Miller. Here is their combined line for the season: 18.2 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 11 BB, 31 K. That’s real life.

The Yankees won their third straight series and improved to 8-2 in their last 10 and remain in a tie atop the AL East except with the Rays and not the Red Sox. For another Subway Series, the Mets and their fans were reminded that they are the little brother in this city. And because of that, I will always love the Subway Series.

Blogs • Subway Series • Yankees

Apr 24, 2015

The Mets and Their Fans Will Always Be the Little Brother

The Yankees need to make sure that the Mets remember that they still aren’t on the same level and will never be when it comes to the Subway Series.

When I went to Yankee Stadium for the sixth game of the season and Sunday Night Baseball, it felt like I was going to an important game. It felt like a must-win game. I understand it sounds outrageous to call the sixth game of a 162-game season a “must-win ” game, but at 1-4 with a game still to go against the Red Sox and then a 10-game road trip to Baltimore, where the Yankees were dominated last season, Tampa Bay (where the Yankees have had trouble winning in recent years) and Detroit (home to the best team in baseball before this past week), things weren’t going to get any easier.

I started to think about what if the Yankees just kept on not scoring and making errors and baserunning mistakes? What if they dug themselves the kind of hole the Brewers have dug for themselves at 3-13 and eight games back just 16 games into the season? What if the season was ruined and over before the end of April?

Thankfully, the Yankees opened that Sunday night game against the Red Sox with an A-Rod three-run double, back-to-back home runs from Chase Headley and Stephen Drew and a seven-run first inning to save their season. And thankfully when they left Baltimore after back-to-back losses they went on to sweep the Rays last weekend and then came within a Jacoby Ellsbury double play of potentially sweeping a four-game series from the Tigers in Detroit. Thankfully, there is still a season.

Nothing has come easy for the Yankees over the last two years and that has continued into 2015. Their first four series were against the rest of the AL East and their fifth series came against the Tigers, who have won the NL Central four seasons in a row, and entered the series with the best record in the majors. And even though they’re returning to the Bronx for a six-game homestand, they’re returning home for the first half of the Subway Series to face the Mets, the latest hottest team in baseball.

I have always liked interleague play and I have always enjoyed the Subway Series. When both teams were competitive, it gave us a playoff-like series in the middle of a season that can feel monotonous at times. And when the Mets were bad like they have been for several years, it meant a few extra wins for the Yankees. Outside of the Mets’ 2013 four-game sweep that changed the Yankees’ season, the Subway Series has always been good to me and Yankees fans.

Things are different in 2015. Most people thought the Mets would be competitive this season and if everything broke right, they could compete for a wild-card spot and could come close to the 90-win plateau for the first time since 2008 when they finished 89-73 and missed the playoffs by one game. But the Mets have exceeded expectations over the first 16 games of the seasons and are 13-3 and riding an 11-game winning streak into the Bronx. An 11-game winning streak … for the Mets. It’s a number that seems unfathomable for an organization that has become the laughingstock of the league since the September 2007 collapse and a number they haven’t seen since 1990.

While this winning streak has continued, Mets fans have started to boast the way they were in 2006 when the Yankees lost in four games to the Tigers in the ALDS as the Mets advanced to the 2006 NLCS only to lose Game 7 at home to the eventual champion Cardinals. Mets fans have talked about taking over the city the way they did nine years ago and the way Jets fans did in 2009 and 2010 and the way Islanders fans did earlier this season. Each time the little brother has lost the battle being put back in their place by the big brother in what is a never-ending cycle. And that’s what each of those organizations are in the city: the little brother.

The Mets have longed to be the Yankees (and apparently the Brooklyn Dodgers too with the layout of Citi Field) and Mets fans have longed to be Yankees fans, stooping as low as trying to make Roll Call a Mets thing. But something like that is expected from a fan base looking for anything to get excited about after eight postseason-less seasons and six losing years in Queens. So it’s not surprising that Mets fans are treating their early-season success like something that will be sustained or trying to steal Yankee Stadium traditions or that they are expected to pack the Stadium this weekend in an effort to take over the Bronx and in turn take over the city.

I’m not sure where the “Best Team in New York” title or the idea that the one team can own or take over the city in any of the major sports came from or how it started, but it’s ridiculous. Not ridiculous in the sense that it doesn’t exist, but ridiculous in the sense that the little brother will ever take down the big brother.

In the past, the Yankees had nothing to gain from the Subway Series. If they won, they were supposed to win, and if they lost, it would be treated as the end of the world by the media and Mets fans. But now the Yankees have something to gain from the Subway Series. They can make sure the Mets and their fans remember that they’re still the little brother.

Podcasts • Subway Series • Yankees

Apr 24, 2015

Podcast: Bald Vinny

Mets fans have tried to steal Roll Call and now they are expected to pack Yankee Stadium this weekend for the Subway Series in the Bronx.

The Yankees’ season looked to be in trouble on Sunday Night Baseball against the Red Sox in the sixth game of the season, but since that win, the Yankees have gone 8-3, including winning six of seven to finish their 10-game road trip. The Yankees have given fans something to be excited about over the last week and they take their three-game winning streak into the most-hyped Subway Series in years.

Bald Vinny of the Right Field Bleacher Creatures and Bald Vinny’s House of Tees joined me to talk about the state of the Yankees’ after the first 16 games of the season, their recent run to end their 10-game road trip, Mets fans stealing Roll Call from Yankees fans and what to expect at Yankee Stadium for the Subway Series this weekend.

Podcasts • Subway Series • Yankees

Apr 23, 2015

Podcast: JJ Barstool Sports New York

After starting the season 1-4, the Yankees have won eight of their last 11 and are tied for first in the AL East with the first half of the Subway Series up next.

After the six-game homestand to open the season, it looked like the Yankees’ season could unravel before it really even began with a 10-game road trip to Baltimore, Tampa Bay and Detroit. But after starting the season 1-4 and being 3-6 after the first three games of the road trip, the Yankees have won six of their last seven and are tied for first in the AL East with the first half of the Subway Series up next.

JJ of Barstool Sports New York joined me to talk about the state of the Yankees after the first weeks of the season, the problems with the Yankees’ lineup, the hype surrounding the Subway Series and why the Yankees need to put an end to the Mets fans’ happiness this weekend.

Tag: Alex Rodriguez

The Yankees and Rays Will Be in Tight Race All Year

Subway Series Diary: Yankee Stadium

The Mets and Their Fans Will Always Be the Little Brother

Podcast: Bald Vinny

Podcast: JJ Barstool Sports New York