The sky is falling!

It's great to see the Jays play in a meaningful game again. And even though they lost, there were a ton of positives that came from the game.

The fact police will try to tell you that the Jays sucked with RISP, and they did. A 1-12 showing isn't great. But you know what? The Yanks, AKA Murderer's Row, managed one less hit with RISP. That's right, the Yanks scored 0 with RISP. A double by A-Rod with Abreu on first, a solo HR, and a fielders choice with the bases loaded. And the runner LOB total? Jays -6, NYY -5. I don't think the Yankees are crying about their RISP totals or LOB #'s, and we shouldn't waste time doing that either.

This my friends, was a pitching duel. And like it or not, with Doc on the mound, we lost. Wang's a great pitcher, a guy who can keep the ball on the ground and makes it extremely difficult to elevate the ball with any meaningful purpose. Hill managed to do it with a double, the only extra base hit for the Blue Birds. But give the Yanks some credit - Cabrera and Damon arguably made game changing catches earlier in the game. If those two hits fall, it's back to back doubles, and the game probably goes to extras.

Beyond that, the Yanks had a double, a triple & a HR. Ironically, the Yanks beat us with pitching and defense, our strength. But that's not to say there were no positives from the game.

• Doc looked pretty solid on the mound. Extremely efficient for the most part too, dishing out very few pitches, allowing him to go deep into the game.
• The offense was taking pitches. They only drew 3 walks IIRC, but it was the pitches per appearance that got my attention. Last year they'd take a pitch and then hit the second pitch out of the zone (or at least that's how it seemed). Last night though, they showed a ton of patience, waited out some tough pitches, and kept Wang throwing a ton of pitches. The only reason Doc ended up throwing more pitches, IMO, was that brutal 7th inning.
  
• Manufacturing runs - The Jays stole some bases, and Scutaro was quite impressive in his debut. They moved guys over - they hit to the right side of the infield when last year they would have just been happy putting the ball in play. I'm not a fan of the smallball approach, but with Rolen out I don't mind Scutaro & Eck doing that sort of stuff.

I think that this offense will be significantly better than last year. I remember Zaun saying something about how the offense is working "as a team", and you could see it in last nights game. Yeah, they didn't do so well last night, but you know what, it's a small sample size. If you're gonna believe that the Jays won't ever hit in RISP this year cause they did poorly against a dominant RHP, than you might as well believe Wells will miss every ball hit to CF, and that our defense will be inexcusably bad.

That's another thing I wanted to bring up. For a lineup that's dominated by RH batters, they did a pretty good job against a tough RHP. The biggest weakness last year was facing RHP, and the Jays did a decent job against Wang. But you gotta give him some credit - he pitched a solid game, and kept the ball in the park.

Going forward, I'd drop Wells (not cause he went 0-4...) and move Overbay up against RHP. Overbay is one of our best bats against RHP, and I really think he needs to be behind Rios. He won't be your typical slugger, but I think with Rolen out the best way for the team to score runs is through doubles, and base hits that keep the line moving. We need to clog the bases, and put on as many runners as possible. Overbay has a better chance than Wells of doing that against RHP.

The game's on Rogers tonight @ 7:05. Should be a solid matchup (AJ vs Mussina), and I'm probably more worried than I Should be about Moose because he always seems to do a good job against the Jays.


Twitch.

Broken down vets? A non-ace ace? Three snotty little brats?

Everyone in Yankeedom is being all smiles and optimism when it comes to the health status of Andy Pettitte, who's been bothered with niggling back pain all spring long. You guys know he can't use HGH to speed recovery this time, even if it is for the noble goal of 'helping the team', right?

My gut tells me two things: 1) grab some Twizzlers and 2) the Yankees' patchwork rotation just has to implode this year. I've been having loads of fun with Fangraphs of late, so I thought I'd have a look at what's being projected for the Yankees rotation this year to test my assumption. Rather than do a composite, I'll just base this on ZiPS, which is usually middle of the road when it comes to computer projection models.

Neither Wang (who stunk to high heaven against Cleveland in the ALDS last year) nor Pettitte is a true ace. Mussina is very near the end of what was/has been a wonderful career and the Hughes/Kennedy/Chamberlain troika has a combined 115 IP of big league experience. How do the numbers play out? Celine Dion ugly, right?

Here's how the Evil Empire's rotation looks:

Andy Pettitte: 16-9, 4.06 ERA in 213 IP (33 starts)

Chien-Ming Wang: 15-8, 3.92 ERA in 200 IP (30 starts)

Mike Mussina: 11-10, 4.74 ERA in 174 IP (29 starts)

Phil Hughes: 12-5, 3.70 ERA in 141 IP (26 starts)

Ian Kennedy: N/A, CHONE and Marcel predict > 100 IP

Joba Chamberlain: 9-8, 4.43 ERA in 134 IP (24 starts)

Kei Igawa: 9-10, 5.20 ERA in 168 IP (26 starts)

Disclaimer: If you actually added up the number of starts on this list and got 168, your calculator is not broken.

Those results from this group of broken down vets, a non-ace ace and three snotty little brats? It saddens me to say it, but this is a group you can work with. And by work with I mean win a division. Handily.

4.61 was the average ERA for AL starters in 2007 and all but Igawa, the $46 million Japanese import who sucked his way into a demotion to AAA last year, are projected to be at (-ish) or better than that mark. This probably explains the Yankees unwillingness to sell the farm for Johan Santana over the offseason. Well, the computer projections and Hank Steinbrenner's league leading dickishness. If Pettitte doesn't get hurt and a 39-year-old Mussina does actually rebound from the worst season of his career, this looks to be a formidable group.

And there's the rub: does Pettitte, with more rings than a Serbian human trafficker and a potentially fragile mental state from Mitchell Report fallout, really have the stick-to-it-iveness to get through 2008? I hope not. And a rebound from the warmed over corpse of Mike Mussina? Come on!

I'm at a loss here people. I was trying to inject a ray of sunshine into an otherwise grey Sunday afternoon.

-- Johnny Was