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Friday, March 7, 2008

Spring Training Liveblog - Astros at Yankees: March 7, 1:05 PM ET

The Yankees are on YES and I’m “working” from home today, so I figured it’s a good time to do the first Liveblog of the year.  According to Peter Abraham, Andy Pettitte starts today, with Mo, Steven White, Latroy Hawkins, Brian “Slim” Bruney and Jose “Can’t hit the catcher’s target ever” Veras all scheduled to get some work in. 

Your lineups:
Astros
Michael Bourn DH
Jose Cruz Jr. CF
Hunter Pence RF
Geoff Blum 3B
Victor Diaz LF
Lance Niekro 1B
Dave Newhan 2B
Tomas Perez SS
Humberto Quintero C

Shawn Chacon P

Yankees
Melky Cabrera CF
Derek Jeter SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Jorge PosadaAlex Rodriguez DH
Shelley Duncan 1B
Wilson Betemit 3B
Jason Lane RF
Jose Molina C
Brett Gardner LF

Andy Pettitte P

Pre-game chatter: I love having baseball back, but why does Michael Kay have to come with it?

Jorge Posada is talking about how Joe Torre was like his father and Joe Girardi is like his brother.  He also says that Girardi has a chip on his shoulder and will play to beat down the opposition.  Sounds good to me.

Top of the first:  The Yankees have taken the field. 

Joe Girardi is build like a brick shithouse.  I’m very interested to see if the renewed focus on conditioning plays out in a better start to the season. 

You can tell Pettitte is off the HGH now, he’s lost all that massive bulk he was sporting.

Bourn takes two fastballs for strikes then fans on a cutter.  Nice start.  Cruz grounds back to Pettitte on a 1-1 count for the second out.  Pettitte works to Pence now and the count runs full.  It’s probably too early to look at the radar gun but Pettitte’s hit 91 on the last two pitches.  Full count heater is popped up to center field where Melky grabs it for the third out.

Bottom of the first: Looks like Rodriguez is DH’ing, not Posada.  Hey, it’s Shawn Chacon! 

First pitch fastball to Melky is taken for a strike, then a curve away misses for a ball.  Melky grounds to third for the first out.

The Captain grounds to second for the second out.

Cano looks like he put on some weight this offseason.  He grounds the first pitch to first and that’ll end an uneventful first.

Top of the second: Yay, my first Guiseppe Franco sighting.  I was hoping this commercial was retired, but I guess if you put your name on the line for something, you need to get more than a year out of it. 

Pettitte sure doesn’t look like someone who’s affected by the HGH foolishness, which is probably killing the NY media.  He seems to have good arm strength and he’s putting the ball righ where he wants for the most part. 

He works to Geoff Blum but grazes him on a pitch up and in, so there’s the first baserunner and here’s Victor Diaz.

I was about to make fun of how far Diaz has fallen, but he cranks an opposite field HR on a slider that didn’t slide all that much and the ‘Stros go up 2-0.  TRADE PETTITTE NOW!

High fly to center by Lance Niekro is caught by Melky and there’s out number one.

Pettitte works to Newhan now.  Newhan fans on a nice cutter down and away for out number two. 

Tomas Perez grounds to Cano to end the inning.

Bottom of the second: Rodriguez leads off the inning with a stinging double past thrd base.  Booo. 

Shelley Duncan is powering his way onto the team to this point.  He’s 7 for 11 with two taters this spring.  Edwar Ramirez is loosening in the pen.

As I went through in the bench piece, Duncan’s projections are pretty ugly, but he really looks like he has a clue up there.  He doesn’t swing at as many bad pitches as you’d expect.  He just took a 2-2 curve that broke out of the zone and the count runs full.  Duncan pops up the full count curve and there’s the first out.  CUT HIM.

Wilson Betemit gets his crack at Chacon now and he grounds to first on the first pitch.  Rodriguez advances to third but there are now two down.

Here’s Jason Lane, who probably doesn’t have a chance at making the team.  Lane goes the other way and finds the gap in right-center.  That’ll plate Rodriguez with Lane getting a double and it’s now 2-1 Astros.

Molina loops a breaking pitch into LF and that scores Lane and we’re knotted up at 2.

Brett Gardner is up.  I haven’t seen him play yet, so this should be interesting.  Gardner doesn’t look like a skinny power-less guy physically.  His bat speed does look a little lacking, but he goes the other way down into the LF corner for a double.  I wonder if he could’ve gotten three without Molina clogging the bases.  Runners on second and third, still two outs, and this looks like the 2006 Shawn Chacon, not the 2005 version.

Chacon walks Melky to load the bases for El Capitan.  Chacon falls behind Jeter 3-0 and then gets a gift strike.  The 3-1 gets chopped over the mound and Jeter is thrown out for the final out of the inning.

Top of the third: Pettitte still out there.  Quintero grounds a single up the middle to lead things off.

Bourn bunts Quintero over to second and there’s one down.

Pettitte’s 40th pitch dips out of the strike zone. Next pitch is grounded past a diving Betemit and they send Quintero.  Gardner’s throw home from shallow left isn’t great, but beats Quintero home and Molina applies a nice tag to complete the out.

Pettitte’s done and Edwar is in. 

The first ‘past a diving Jeter’ of the day, as a ball is grounded up the middle and under his glove for a “hit” for Pence.  A changeup gets popped to Duncan in foul territory to end the frame. 

Bottom of the third: Cano faces Chacon and grounds out to first base again.  One down.

Rodriguez grounds out to third and that’s two down. 

Duncan grounds to third and Blum makes a nice play to throw him out.  That’ll do it for the third.

Top of the fourth:  Mariano Rivera will make his spring debut.  Three pitch K to start it off, with Mo reaching 94 on the YES gun.  Niekro grounds a cutter to Cano for the second out.  K looking ends a strong debut for the best relief pitcher ever.

Bottom of the fourth: Chris Sampson relieved Chacon and retired the Yanks 1-2-3.

Top of the fifth: LaTroy Hawkins takes over pitching duties.  Looks like he’s got a good two-seamer going and gets a ground out.  It looks like Hawkins still throws hard.

A sharp liner to first base gets through Shelley Duncan for either a hit or an error.

Hawkins throws hard and gets hit harder.  Scorching double to CF just past Melky’s glove and the Astros have runners on second and third with one out. 

Grounder to Jeter for an out, with a run scoring on the play and it’s now 3-2 Astros.

Grounder to Betemit who throws off-line to score a fourth run for the Astros.  Hawkins isn’t impressing me so far, not that I expected him to.

Grounder to Cano finally ends the inning. Lots of grounders.

Bottom of the fifth: Gardner hits a fly ball to left center that falls in.  Gardner uses his speed to get to third easily. 

Melky follows up by doubling and it’s 4-3 Astros with Melky on second.

Jeter advances Melky to third with a ground out.

Cano singles over a drawn-in infield to tie the game at 4.

You know it’s spring training when Alex Rodriguez gets pinch-hit for.  Posada pinch-hits and flies out to the warning track for the second out.

Cano steals second and the throw gets past the shortstop to advance him to third. 

Duncan whiffs on a 3-2 slider away and that’ll end the inning.

Top of the sixth: Stephen White is in.  Austin Jackson’s taken over in CF, Chris Woodward at second, Alberto Gonzalez at short, and Morgan Ensberg at first. There’s a new catcher too, I assume it’s Cervelli.

My first impression of White is his control is pretty bad.  He gives up a double to CF that bounced over the wall.  A ground out advances the runner to third, then a grounder to Ensberg scores the fifth Astro un.  Ensberg made a nice play to field the ball but his throw home didn’t beat the runner.

Newhan steals second ahead of the throw by the mystery catcher.

White comes back to get a ground out and a K.

Bottom of the sixth: This is probably my last inning.

Betemit cranks one into the seats in RF for a HR, tying the game at 5.  He looks like he’s lost a decent amount of weight from last year, according to Michael Kay he’s down about 20 lbs.

Lane whiffs then P.J. Pilittere grounds to Blum, who can’t field the bad hop.  Some dude named Porter hits a single and here’s Austin Jackson with runners on first and second and one down.

Jackson grounds to Blum who boots another one, and the bases are loaded.

Alberto Gonzalez ends the excitement with a DP and I’m done.