Joe Mauer – Keefe To The City

Jul 3, 2014

The Yankees’ Trash Has Turned into the Twins’ Treasure

The Yankees need to start winning and they need to start now. There’s no better place for that than a four-game series in Minnesota against the Twins.

The Yankees followed a four-game winning streak with a four-game losing streak. Then after back-to-back wins they have now lost five straight. What does that mean? Other than that they have been a bad team for a while now, I have no idea. But I hope it means that they are about to go on a 12-game winning streak.

With the Yankees and Twins meeting in Minnesota for a four-game series, Jesse Lund of Twinkie Town joined me to talk about Phil Hughes’ first half-season with the Twins, Eduardo Nunez’s surprising production and how two failed Twins starters have become reliable relievers.

Keefe: The last time we talked was on May 30 for the last Yankees-Twins series. A lot has happened in those five weeks. Mainly, the Yankees have gone in the tank. Before that series, the Yankees were 28-24 and since then they have gone 13-18. I thought after finishing their nine-game road trip with four wins in five games that they would use a home series against the Twins to start a summer run, but that didn’t happen. The Twins didn’t use their series win over the Yankees in the Bronx to start a run of their own either, going 14-18 since since then.

What has gone wrong for the Twins since the last time they played the Yankees?

Lund: I don’t know if as much has gone wrong as much as it’s just the Twins playing to their true talent level. Some guys could be doing better (Nolasco, Arcia) and some guys have cooled off (Dozier, Escobar, Suzuki), but it’s really just an issue with inconsistency. And that’s to be expected when you have a roster of middle-of-the-road talent … and that tag is probably being a little generous.

This team has some pretty good role players, but with Mauer out and one of their new hot hands (Danny Santana) also on the disabled list, the lineup has been patchwork and being competitive is mostly down to the starting pitcher having a good night.

Keefe: My worst nightmare came true on June 1 at Yankee Stadium and I was in the Stadium to watch it unfold: Phil Hughes beat the Yankees. Not only did he beat the Yankees, but he was in line for a loss after giving up two earned runs over eight innings before David Robertson had a meltdown and the Yankees gave up six runs in the ninth for a 7-2 loss.

Since that start, Hughes has slowly started to return to being the Phil Hughes that pitched for the Yankees in 2013, allowing five earned runs in three of his five starts. The biggest difference about 2014 Phil Hughes is that he isn’t walking anyone. He has walked just 10 in 103 innings this season after walking 42 in 145 2/3 innings last season. (As you can tell and as I told you last time, I’m rooting heavily against Hughes after how he pitched his way out of the Bronx after being sold to Yankees fans for about a decade.)

Are you waiting for pre-2013 Phil Hughes to show up in Minnesota or do you think 2014 Phil Hughes is here to stay?

Lund: I don’t think he’s as good as he was the first two months of the season, but I still think he’ll be better for Minnesota than he was for the Yankees. He’s established a nice rapport with Kurt Suzuki, who has a better acumen for game-calling than I expected, but Hughes has also been pitching with a good deal of confidence. To live and die up in the zone, I guess you need to have a good deal of faith in your abilities. I see Hughes stabilizing as a solid No. 3, which will make him well worth his contract and, until Alex Meyer arrives, also probably makes him the best pitcher on staff.

Keefe: In the ninth inning of that nightmare June 1 loss, Eduardo Nunez doubled in the ninth in his only at-bat of the game. If I’m rooting heavily against Phil Hughes this season then I’m rooting incredibly against Eduardo Nunez after his Yankees tenure and his projected future costing the Yankees Cliff Lee in 2010, as I told you during the last email exchange.

Nunez is hitting .305/.337/.463 for the Twins this year with three home runs in 87 plate appearances after hitting .260/.307/.372 with three home runs for the Yankees in 336 plate appearances last year. As for Yangervis Solate, Nunez’s replacement on the Yankees, well after carrying the Yankees through the first two months of the season, he was sent down to Triple-A on Thursday prior to the start of this series.

What are your thoughts on the man the Yankees referred to as Nuney?

Lund: I think he’s one of those fine role players I mentioned earlier. The Twins organization’s inability to plan for issues in center field has led to a lot of infielders playing in the outfield somewhere, and that’s opened up a few opportunities for Nunez. As long as we don’t need him to step in for anything more than a couple of games at a time, he’s a perfectly suitable bench option, provided he keeps producing. You’ve seen firsthand how quickly he can lose his ability to produce, and I sincerely doubt that he’s suddenly tapped into his missing potential now. It’s not easy to be one of those guys – a guy who only gets playing time when he produces but can’t get playing time when he doesn’t produce and so how to you earn the playing time to produce when you’re not producing, but for now he looks like a nice get. I just wish he’d be willing to take a walk.

Keefe: I remember in 2009 when Glen Perkins was a starter and Brian Duensing was a starter, starting Game 1 of the 2009 ALDS. That was five years ago and now the two are no longer starters and haven’t been for a couple of years now. However, Perkins has turned into a reliable closer for the Twins and Duensing a reliable middle reliever.

Are you disappointed with how the potential starting careers of the two turned out, or are you happy that they turned out to be viable options in the bullpen?

Lund: It’s different for each guy. For Duensing, he was durable enough to start but he didn’t have the stuff and right handed hitters ate him for breakfast. So he’s turned into a pretty reliable middle innings reliever, even if Gardy doesn’t utilize platoon advantages as much as he could to get the most out of the lefty.

For Perkins, he seemed destined to be a wash out. His fastball sat right around 90, the curveball was too big and too slow, and he was just hit hard. Constantly. No doubt you’ve experienced this before as a fan — a guy with decent potential can’t make the adjustment to big league ball, his performance suffers, maybe says the wrong things to the wrong people in the organization and he’s in the dog house and you can already hear signatures going onto his walking papers.

But then he told the organization there wasn’t anywhere else he wanted to be, the team gave him an opportunity out of the bullpen, he started throwing 97, developed a slider and gave up on the curve, moved up the bullpen hierarchy and now he’s one of the best relievers in the American League. So while for Duensing it was a situation of low expectations and just being glad the guy found a place to be effective, with Perkins it was the case of a first round draft pick nearly going bust before being reinvented. There’s no disappointment there, just surprise.

Keefe: When we last talked, you said you thought the Twins would win 70 games before the season started and on May 30 you still believed that to be true. At 38-45, the Twins are 10 games out in the Central and would need to go 32-47 the rest of the way to meet your prediction, which won’t exactly be hard for them to do. After another month of baseball and half the season left, are your feelings on these Twins still the same and how your opinion on their future changed at all?

Lund: I think I’m willing to up my projection to 75 games. Now that’s without taking into account the fact that the Twins should be selling off spare parts at the trade deadline, which would change things again. But at the halfway mark they are on pace to win 76 games – a ten-game improvement over 2013 – and that’s a big step in the right direction. It’s been a rough two or three weeks here, but it’s definitely been a lot of fun watching the team be more competitive this year.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Yankees

May 30, 2014

The Hostility for Phil Hughes

In his eighth season in the majors, Phil Hughes is finally realizing his potential as a starting pitcher. The problem is he is doing it with the Twins after failing to do so with the Yankees.

The Yankees are finally back home after what felt like a month-long road trip and the Twins are in the Bronx to begin what is a seven-game homestand. And even with Robinson Cano returning to the Bronx again on Monday and Felix Hernandez starting for the Mariners in that same game, the attention in the Bronx over the next week will be on Phil Hughes, who will start Sunday against the Yankees.

Since 60 percent of the Yankees’ Opening Day rotation is on the disabled list and the organization looking for starting pitching depth, a lot will be made about why they didn’t re-sign Hughes in the offseason. But two months of solid starts from Hughes doesn’t change the fact that he wouldn’t have had that same success in New York this season. He had seven seasons to show he could have that kind of success in New York.

With the Yankees and Twins meeting for the first time in 2014, Jesse Lund of Twinkie Town joined me to talk about the Twins’ postseason problems with the Yankees, how Phil Hughes has managed to realize his potential in Minnesota and what’s it like to watch Justin Morneau return to his former self for another team.

Keefe: From 2002 to 2010, the Twins made the playoffs in six of the nine seasons. In four of those years (2003, 2004, 2009 and 2010) they played the Yankees in the ALDS and lost all four series, going just 2-12.

From 2002 to 2011, the Yankees made the playoffs in nine of the 10 seasons. The only four times the Yankees made it out of the ALDS were the series against the Twins as they would lose to the Angels (2002 and 2005), Tigers (2006 and 2011) and Indians (2007). It wasn’t until the Yankees series win over the Orioles in the 2012 ALDS that they were able to advance to the ALCS having beaten a team other than the Twins. The Twins have been good to the Yankees.

The last time the teams met in the playoffs, the Twins had home-field advantage and a lead late in Game 1, but a Mark Teixeira home run carried the Yankees to a win and they didn’t look back from there, sweeping the Twins in three games.

Before that, the teams met in 2009 and the Twins took an early lead in Game 1 in that series before a Yankees’ comeback and rally and the Twins had a two-run lead in the ninth inning of Game 2 with Joe Nathan on the mound and he couldn’t close it out and then in extra innings the Twins couldn’t score with the bases loaded as the Yankees went on to win on a Teixeira walk-off home run. In Game 3, the Yankees hit back-to-back solo home runs off Carl Pavano and some bad baserunning did the Twins in in what was just a three-game series.

Going back to 2003 and 2004 when the Twins had Johan Santana and late leads against the Yankees, they weren’t able to hold those then either.

For as much as the Yankees made the Twins their whipping team from 2003-2010 in four postseason series, the Twins were a bounce or two or a Phil Cuzzi correct call or a Joe Nathan save away from changing those series and course of baseball history. After what has happened with the Twins over the last few years and recognizing how hard it is to sustain success in the majors and reach the postseason, do you ever think about what could have been if just a couple things had gone the other way in those series?

Lund: For me, it’s over. They’re painful times to relive, because as you said, a bounce here or there and things go in a different direction. But it’s happened and I try to move on. I can’t promise that the rest of Twins Territory feels the same way, because our own community has raged against the organization (and Ron Gardenhire in particular) every October, but it’s easier for those wounds to feel fresh when it’s the same opponent pressing their heel into your chest. And you know what? Being a good team and continuing to take those losses year in and year out, it gets old.

In the grand scheme of life you always look back, but the best you can do is get yourself ready for what’s coming next. The Twins are rebuilding, and in the next two or three years they’ll have chances at toppling someone else in the playoffs. But I can guarantee you one thing — when it’s the Yankees, it’ll be sweet as hell. A lot of Twins fans will be waiting for that day.

Keefe: I had a party the day after Phil Hughes’ final start with the Yankees last season because I knew it would be the last time he would pitch for the Yankees. After an up-and-down start to his rushed career in 2007, which saw him blow a hamstring during a no-hitter in his second career start, he saved the Yankees’ ALDS hopes out of the bullpen in Game 3 that October. Then in 2008, his season was destroyed by injuries and he started 2009 in Triple-A before being recalled and eventually moved to the bullpen where he became a dominant setup man for Mariano. In 2010, he won 18 games, but faded at the end of the season and after shutting out the Twins in Game 3 of the ALDS, he was embarrassed by the Rangers in two ALCS starts. In 2011, he suffered from a tired arm early on but rebounded to win 16 games. And then in 2013, he was the worst regular starting pitcher in the majors, pitching to a 5.19 ERA and losing 14 games for an 85-win team. The Yankees didn’t deserve to make the playoffs last year, but if anyone other than Hughes had been in the rotation for his starts, they likely would have.

I thought Hughes needed to go to the National League to achieve success as a starter in the majors and believed that eventually some team would put him in the bullpen where he was so good in 2009. But so far with the Twins through two months, Hughes has become the pitcher we saw glimpses of in New York and maybe he just needed to get out of the spotlight to realize his potential.

Lund: I always expected he’d be a target, and sure enough the front office admitted as much early in the off-season. The market rate was around $8 million per year, and as long as the Twins didn’t go over that I wouldn’t have had any issues with them signing Hughes. In the end they went for three years at $8 million per, which is a year longer than I’d have hoped for, but one of the things we talked about at Twinkie Town over the winter was that the club would need to overpay in free agency to get any of the free agent targets they really wanted. Whether that meant the Twins had to go three years to make it happen or not, that’s the way I was looking at it. It’s been a terrible three-year span for this organization. Who was going to voluntarily come to Minnesota unless they met a special asking price?

There were certain things that led me to believe that Hughes could be more successful in Minnesota. Target Field plays bigger than Yankee Stadium, which is always going to help a fly ball pitcher. The pressure on professional athletes isn’t the same, either, which can make it easier for a guy to play within himself. Everyone reacts differently to pressure, and having lived in Minneapolis and Boston and New York City it’s only reinforced the stereotype that the overzealous sports fans get more attention on the east coast than they do in the Midwest. I’m not sure that there are proportionally more crazy sports fans in one area compared to the other, but it’s safe to say that sports feel more important to more people in New York and Boston. And that carries over to radio and television and newspapers and fans on the street and certainly at the ballpark. Which is just a long way of saying that a change of scenery seemed like a good idea for Hughes.

Now, did anyone think he’d be as good as he’s been this year? Hell no.

Keefe: Joe Mauer has been one of the Top 5 hardest outs against the Yankees with Dustin Pedroia, Miguel Cabrera, Delmon Young and Evan Longoria being the other four. He has been to the Twins what Derke Jeter has been to Yankees fans for so long and I’m happy he didn’t leave through free agency or get traded instead of getting paid by the Twins.

Now on the other side of 30, Mauer is still an offensive threat and one of the better average hitters in the game, even if he hasn’t taken off yet this season. He might never replicate his 2009 MVP season, but he can still be the face of the franchise and a middle-of-the-order presence for seemingly as long as he’s healthy.

What’s it like to have Mauer now be the first baseman for the Twins after having been that familiar face behind the plate for so long?

Lund: I think we all knew that Mauer would need to change positions sooner or later. It would have been better to have had that change come under different circumstances, but mitigating risk of additional concussions was going to be on the front of everyone’s mind after the performance hiatus of Justin Morneau. At least Mauer told the Twins of his decision early in the off-season, so that the front office had plenty of time to build the team around him.

Not that they succeeded. But that’s a story we’ve banged on endless times in the last few months.

It’s worth wondering if there are some lingering post-concussion things with Mauer. He’s striking out more this season, and while teams are shifting him to left field and just daring him to pull the ball there’s more to it than that. At catcher he was one of the best hitters in the game, and at first base his career numbers would make him one of the eight or 10 best-hitting first basemen in baseball, but if we’re going to see that potential then he’s going to have to turn something around pretty soon. The sooner, the better, because this offense desperately needs him.

Keefe: It still feels weird to me to see Justin Morneau on a team other than Twins, even though he’s now with his second team since his days as a Twin ended. He was the face of the Twins, at least from an outsider’s perspective, along with Mauer, and if it hadn’t been for injuries in 2010 and 2011, maybe the Twins would have experienced a different fate.

What has it been like seeing one of the staples of the organization for so long play for another team and also succeed and return to form with another team? Do you think he will ever give Derek Jeter the 2006 MVP he stole from him?

Lund: First, you’re probably right that Morneau didn’t deserve the MVP in 2006. But Grady Sizemore, Joe Mauer and even Johan Santana deserved it before Jeter. Man, those debates were intense in 2006! Both before and after the awards were handed out. But the Twins had a young core that was the absolute balls.

And yeah, it feels bizarre to see Justin Morneau wearing another uniform. Honestly it was painful seeing him dealt away last August for essentially nothing. Alex Presley was our center fielder for the rest of the season before he was claimed off waivers by Houston this spring, and Duke Welker was swapped back to Pittsburgh for Kris Johnson, who is a lefty stuck in Triple-A who doesn’t have much of a future with the Major League club anyway. It wasn’t that the Twins were undersold, either – Morneau’s value had fallen that far.

A vocal minority at Twinkie Town, including myself, still wanted the Twins to bring him back, to see him split first base and designated hitter duties with Mauer. Of course, that didn’t happen. But I’m happy to see that he’s reviving his career, because he was a special hitter. By 2010 he had as many holes in his swing as Mauer — none — and it was so much fun watching the trajectories of both players continue to rise. Without the injuries, it’s safe to say that the Twins would have given Morneau another contract.

Four years later things have changed quite a bit, and I don’t think anyone could have predicted just much Justin would produce this year. And it’s not just playing at Coors Field, either — Morneau is hitting at home and on the road.

Keefe: The Twins won 66 games the last two years and 63 games in 2011. Before that, they had one season (2007) in which they finished under .500 since 2000. The Twins had a good run from 2001-10 before everything seemed to fall apart for them, mainly the starting pitching, and now while they aren’t having a great season so far, they seem to be back on track.

What were your expectations for the Twins coming into the season and have they changed for better or worse after watching them for two months? When will the Twins get back to where they were before 2011?

Lund: My expectations were that this team could win 70 games this season, and I don’t think that’s changed. The starting pitching needs to be better, starting with Ricky Nolasco, but calling up future ace Alex Meyer and fireballer Trevor May will help those of us looking towards the future – at least, once the Twins are bold enough to bring them both up. As for the offense, it’s good to have Josh Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia – a potential middle-of-the-order hitter in the future – back in the lineup. But I’m not sure there’s a lot of help to be had for the lineup unless a number of guys start contributing as we know they’re capable of contributing. There’s no denying that 2014 will still be a rough season for Twins fans, but it should be better than the last three summers. Which is a plus.

This organization went into a tailspin not just because of poor decisions at the Major League level (free agents and trades were almost universally awful following Terry Ryan’s departure after the 2007 season), but also because the Twins whiffed on half a dozen drafts in a row in the early to late 2000s. They netted no good starting pitchers and no offensive contributors better than replacement level between 2003 and 2008. Except Matt Garza. Who they traded.

Luckily, the Twins have done exceptionally well with their international signings in recent years, and their drafts since 2009 have been yielding significantly better results. The front office still needs to make some good, shrewd, difficult decisions over the next off-season or two, but if they can consistently make better decisions then this team can partner legitimate Major League talent with a fantastic farm system that is going to start producing some real studs. The aforementioned Meyer and Arcia, Eddie Rosario, Jose Berrios, Kohl Stewart, Jorge Polanco, and of course Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano … the good days are coming.

But the front office needs to do their part to make sure there’s talent around those guys when they arrive.

Blogs • Yankees

Mar 31, 2010

Opening Day Butterflies

The Yankees will no longer be world champions on Sunday night They will be defending world champions. And the only thing harder than winning a championship is winning back-to-back championships.

This column was originally published on WFAN.com on March 31, 2010.

Something about this spring training coming to an end just doesn’t feel right. This spring has that feeling you get when you leave your house and feel like you forgot something, but you convince yourself you didn’t, and then when you are too far away from your house to go back, you remember what you forgot. I have figured out what has been missing from this spring training, and it’s the distress of the last eight springs.

From 2001-2008, no matter what situation the Yankees faced, I believed they would prevail in the end. But that was me being spoiled and stupid as a Yankees fan, trying to hold onto the magic from 1996-2000. Up until Luis Gonzalez fought off a cutter into shallow right field, I honestly thought the Yankees would never lose again. Winning had become routine and losing wasn’t even considered an option anymore. It’s hard for anyone who is not a Yankees fan to understand this, and trying to explain the concept to non-Yankees fans is like Ron Washington trying to explain to the Rangers front office why he failed a drug test. However, it wasn’t until they hit rock bottom in 2004 that I was able to admit that I was unsure of the next time the Yankees would be world champions.

In 2004, I didn’t even care that the Red Sox won Game 4 because I knew the series would end in Game 5. But when I left Fenway devastated after having wasted nearly all my spending money for the semester on a ticket to Game 5 with my friend Jim, thinking we were going to see the Yankees clinch the pennant in Boston, I still believed the Yankees would finish the Red Sox off in Game 6. And if not, they would certainly get the job done in Game 7.

The Yankees failed in every imaginable way from 2001-2008, and with each year removed from 2000, the offseasons lasted longer and the anxiety for another title grew larger. The Yankees slowly evolved into what the Patriots have become in the NFL, and it wasn’t until November that they were able to rid themselves of their fading image.

Every spring for the last eight springs, I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out where the holes on the team were and how Brian Cashman could fill them in order to bring the team back to glory. But this season, there are virtually no holes. The No. 4 starter had a 2.87 ERA in the National League in 2009, and the No. 7 hitter hit 30 home runs a year ago. The only thing to complain about right now is why the Yankees are opening and closing the season in Fenway Park. Aside from that, the team has an answer for everything, or at least it appears that way.

There might not be much to worry about with this team, but there is always something to worry about with every team. Any fan who is completely content with their team is lying to you and lying to themselves. To me, there are two crucial components to the success of the 2010 Yankees. While I’m not all that worried about them, there is still a cause for concern since the margin for error in the AL East is zero, and the difference between these two things working out and not working out is the difference between championship No. 28 and a third-place finish.

1. The production from 2, 20 and 42
The same way I don’t want to believe that Eric Taylor of Friday Night Lights isn’t really a high school football coach at East Dillon, I don’t want to believe that Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada and Mariano Rivera will one day be bad at baseball.

Jeter is going to be 36 in June, Jorge will be 39 in August and Mariano turned 40 in November. At some point these three won’t be the same players they are going to be remembered as being. Let’s hope that never happens, but more importantly, let’s hope it doesn’t happen this year.

The Yankees are in a position in which the success of these three will likely dictate the success of the team. Since 1996, the team has made the playoffs in 13 of a possible 14 seasons. The only season they didn’t was the year when Posada appeared in only 51 games. When they are healthy the Yankees win, and it’s as simple as that.

Eventually Father Time is going to catch up with the trio, but their demise has been falsely predicted each season for the last few seasons. This year, many analysts and “experts” are jumping on the bandwagons of the Red Sox and Rays, banking on old age finally catching up with the old guard. But the “experts” have been wrong before and will likely be wrong again.

I don’t think we are at the end of the road with these three, but eventually we will be and no one knows for sure when that will be. Not only does that deeply sadden me, but it also scares me since a decline in production from Jeter, Posada and Rivera will mean the end of an era and a year without postseason baseball.

2. The bridge to Mariano
The first time I saw Joba Chamberlain fail in person was May 6, 2008. Aside from the midges in Cleveland, it was the first time Joba had every failed in the majors. Joba allowed a go-ahead three-run home run to David Dellucci at the Stadium, and then leaned over on the mound in disbelief, appearing as though he was going to throw up on his spikes after what happened. The entire stadium felt the same way. Joba had been untouchable in his career up to that point, and seeing him blow a lead was like seeing Brian Bruney hold a lead.

In 2007, the only run he allowed in the regular season was a solo home run to Mike Lowell. When Ron Guidry went to the mound to check on him following the homer, Joba reversed roles with the pitching coach. Joba patted the Gator on the back and sent him back to the dugout, assuring him that he was fine and that it wouldn’t happen again. That was the personality of Joba Chamberlain before he became a starter and before the Joba Rules were created.

Joba wants to be a starting pitcher, and he has made that very clear. Why wouldn’t he want to? That is where the glory and glamour is, and the big money as well. But will knowing that he lost his starting spot after the team tinkered with his career and arm for a year and a half cause him to be a different reliever than we know him to be? Will he still possess the personality that meant a 1-2-3 inning and an emotional outburst?

When Joba returned to the bullpen during the postseason, the aura from 2007 and the beginning of 2008 was back, and so was his fastball. It was like watching the guy get the girl at the end of a movie. Everything was the way it was supposed to be, and the result was a happy ending in the form of a championship.

The world now knows two Jobas: Reliever Joba and Starter Joba. Joba might be a reliever now, but that doesn’t necessarily make him Reliever Joba. No one knows what to expect from him as he returns to his original role with the team.

This offseason seemed to go by a lot faster than years past, which is partially due to the Yankees playing until Nov. 4 and partially due to not longing for another championship. Eight springs as the hunter and not as the hunted have made me value championships more than I did the last time the Yankees won, when I took the Subway Series win for granted.

Fans of the other 29 teams will credit the 2009 World Series to the Yankees spending $429 million last offseason, but that was just part of the process. The thousands of breaks, the vast amount of luck and the tens of injuries the team dodged made up for more than half of the pieces to the 2009 World Series puzzle.

If CC Sabathia had actually been hurt when he left in the second inning of a game against the Marlins on June 21, the new Yankee Stadium would have opened the same way the old one closed. If Phil Cuzzi doesn’t call Joe Mauer’s ground-rule double foul in Game 2 of the ALDS, and if Mike Scioscia intentionally walks A-Rod in the bottom of the ninth in Game 2 of the ALCS, maybe the Canyon of Heroes goes unused for another fall.

I have tried to cherish the 2009 season as much and as long as possible because after Josh Beckett delivers his first pitch to Derek Jeter on Sunday night, the Yankees will no longer be world champions. They will be defending world champions. And the only thing harder than winning a championship is winning back-to-back championships.

Tag: Joe Mauer

The Yankees’ Trash Has Turned into the Twins’ Treasure

The Hostility for Phil Hughes

Opening Day Butterflies