Thursday, August 17, 2006
Cy Loewen
The Yankees went into last night’s game on a mini-roll, having picked up two games in the standings in two days. Unfortunately, they ran into the greatest pitcher ever, Adam “Cy” Loewen. Don’t be fooled by his 6.12 ERA, 1.70 WHIP, and opponent’s OBP of .389. Loewen held the Yankees to 2 runs over 5.2 innings, following up his last outing against them when he held them to one hit, and the Yankees did nothing against the Baltimore bullpen, losing 3-2.
In the big picture, the loss wasn’t a huge deal, but it was one of those frustrating games that you feel the team should have won. They very possibly could have won if they had started Jorge Posada and Jason Giambi, but that was not the plan apparently. I have no problem with resting one or the other, but I question the wisdom of benching both on the same day, although they did both eventually get in the game. A bigger problem yesterday was Johnny Damon and Derek Jeter going 0 for 9, but both have been great this year, so I’m not going to get on them.
Octavio Dotel made his Yankee debut with middling results. His stuff looked great, as he was consistently in the mid 90s with his fastball and his slider had nasty break in the low 80s, but he looked like he was overthrowing or rusty as his command was pretty bad. Hopefully it was just nerves. This must be the hardest throwing Yankee bullpen in memory, with 3 guys who sit at 95 consistently and Mariano Rivera who usually works in the low 90s but dials it up there on occasion as well.
The Yankees play a day game today against Baltimore before heading to Fenway for a big five game set. Rodrigo Lopez (8-12, 6.20) takes on Jaret Wright (9-6, 4.24). I’d love to see 6 innings from Jaret Wright followed by three innings from Sir Sidney in a 12-4 win, especially with Boston getting a day off today, but I rarely get my wish. A win today would let the Yankees head to Boston up 3 games in the loss column, which would give them a bit more breathing room. They’d then be in the situation where even a 5 game sweep would only leave them 2 games back in the loss column. I’ll run through all the scenarios tomorrow in my big ass series preview.
So, go Jaret Wright, and go Yankee offense.
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