Results tagged ‘ Jason Giambi ’
Yankees sweep away the A’s
Aided by Jason Giambi’s go-ahead homer in the sixth, Andy Pettitte guided a
two-hour, 26-minute breezer in New York’s 2-1 win against Oakland on
Sunday to complete a three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium. It was another sweltering day up in the Bronx but Pettitte kept his cool, working quickly and efficiently.
Johnny Damon wants to be in the Yankees lineup. Well, you can’t always get what you want. There’s a chance he’ll be in Monday as the Yankees meet the Twins.
I’ve been checking the coolstandings.com site pretty much daily now; it’s become part of my morning habit. I was no math major, but this is the time of year for it. In case you’re wondering, the Yankees are handicapped at 25.1 percent to make the playoffs, 12.4 percent for the AL East title.
Headed north of the border
Well, Jason Giambi didn’t get in through the All-Star Game Final Vote. That’s a shame — I thought he would have been a phenomenal contender in the Home Run Derby on Monday. He’ll just have to make do with his second prize … four days and three nights in fabulous Las Vegas.
First, the Yankees will have to get through the next three days, heading north of the border after last night’s unproductive detour in Pittsburgh. More troubling than the loss, we’d say, is the fact that Jorge Posada was once again out of the lineup with Jose Molina catching. Posada is very proud about the fact that he’s a catcher, not a first baseman, and he is insistent that he signed with the Yankees to catch all four years of his contract.
Now, we can debate about whether Posada can legitimately expect to catch in 2011. But I don’t think anyone saw it coming that he’d be pushed off to the side in 2008 — obviously, the right shoulder is a major concern for Joe Girardi, even though he won’t publicly say it. I asked Brian Cashman the same question in New York last week and he said that there’s health, and that nobody works harder than Posada. Then why not play him?
Assorted notes and quotes: Mariano Rivera will not start the All-Star Game, it seems. Good. His place belongs in the ninth inning if the American League has a lead. … Hank Steinbrenner tells USA Today that he plans to hire Lou Piniella as an advisor once Sweet Lou’s managing days are through. … The FanFest opens today at the Javits Center. Since I’m in town for the festivities and not in Toronto, I may have time to check it out. If so, I’ll post a report. … Don Larsen’s perfect game was screened last night at BB King’s in midtown. Wish I’d been there. …. Who, exactly, is paying to watch Jose Canseco fight in Atlantic City? …
The Big G needs your help
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ONLY 7 HOURS LEFT IN MONSTER ALL-STAR GAME FINAL VOTE ON MLB.COM
Winners of close races in each League to be announced tonight on MLB.com
NEW YORK, July 10, 2008 – The Monster 2008 All-Star Game Final Vote on MLB.com is down to its final seven hours before today’s 5 p.m. (EDT) deadline with the record-setting fan voting increasing to nearly one million votes cast every hour.
In the American League, a heated race for the top spot between Tampa Bay Rays rookie third
baseman Evan Longoria and Jermaine Dye of the Chicago White Sox will go down to the deadline. Jason Giambi of the New York Yankees, Brian Roberts of the Baltimore Orioles and Jose Guillen of the Kansas City Royals continue to draw impressive fan support in their campaigns for the final spot on the A.L. All-Star Team.
On the National League ballot, Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Corey Hart and David Wright of the New York Mets are locked in a tightly-contested competition as they enter the final hours of balloting. Philadelphia’s Pat Burrell remained in third place while Aaron Rowand of the San
Francisco Giants and Carlos Lee of the Houston Astros follow in fourth and fifth place,
respectively.
Fans can also cast their votes via their mobile phones by texting the word “Vote” to 36197 to
receive the Monster All-Star Game Final Vote candidates. In Canada, fans should text the word “Vote” to 88555.
Previous winners of the Monster All-Star Game Final Vote include: Hideki Okajima (AL, 2007);
Chris Young (NL, 2007); A.J. Pierzynski (AL, 2006); Nomar Garciaparra (NL, 2006); Scott
Podsednik (AL, 2005); Oswalt (NL, 2005); Hideki Matsui (AL, 2004); Bobby Abreu (NL, 2004);
Jason Varitek (AL, 2003); Geoff Jenkins (NL, 2003); Johnny Damon (AL, 2002); and Andruw
Jones (NL, 2002).
The first (and last) Mustache Day at Yankee Stadium
The Yankees have had some pretty good promotions in recent years. I’ve still got those bronze statues of Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford that they gave away (I broke the Phil Rizzuto one … sorry Scooter, you took a tumble off my bookshelf), and the All-Star Game cap is my usual standby for jogging or the gym.
But these Jason Giambi mustaches today may take the prize for their most memorable giveaway. We’re looking at men, women, and children of all ages wearing their Giambi mustaches, and it’s unbelievable. Where does one actually go for this many fake mustaches on short notice? Even Mike Mussina was walking around wearing one this morning.
If this doesn’t rock the Final Vote for Giambi, I don’t know what will. I asked him what it’d be like to look at 20,000 fake mustaches in the crowd today. “A lot of wannabe Italians,” he said.
Supporting the ‘Stache
This is a really cool graphic the talented designers at MLB.com cooked up for the Final Vote.
I’ll admit, I’m interested in seeing Giambi make the All-Star team, only because he’ll have something typically hilarious to say about how his mustache made all the difference. I love that he knew it looked terrible for the first few weeks and kept it anyway because he was hitting.
I also love that Derek Jeter told him to clean it up during one of the Yankees’ off-days — that was an official order from the Captain — and Giambi brushed in some Just For Men, showing up with a much darker and bushier growth.
Well, all that, and I think he’d be a draw to watch in the Home Run Derby. Giambi would be taking aim at the upper deck in right field and he’d probably send a few Jeffrey Maier-wannabes to the hospital in the process.
Damon could go to the DL
It looks more and more like Johnny Damon could be headed to the disabled list
for the first time in his career, though that’s still not 100 percent
certain. They planned to re-evaluate him on Sunday but when a guy can’t
put his uniform jersey on, he’s a long way from playing left field at
Yankee Stadium.
Speaking of that, did Dustin Pedroia think Damon was still playing left
field in the first inning or what? Nice throw by Brett Gardner and it
got a pretty good reaction from the crowd. That’s a heck of a heads-up slide by Jason Giambi there to put the Yankees on the board as well. You wonder what was going through his mind as he huffs and puffs around third base, then sees the ball is going to beat him by a great margin.
Still waiting for the energy to pump this building up. It’s warm, hazy and I know it’s Yankees-Red Sox, but it seems like there’s still 55,000 people (less the people wearing red, and there’s a lot of them) waiting for a reason to explode. Maybe some of them are feeling under the weather like Jorge Posada is.
All-Star Moose?
Mike Mussina, an All-Star? I wouldn’t have believed it myself, but consider the fact that Mussina once again has a share of the American League lead with nine victories — including eight in his last nine starts. Sure, he’s been lucky at times, but any pitcher who’s winning nine of 13 games is off to a heck of a run for a season.
Not too shabby for a guy who many were looking at as a fifth starter and potential weak link to the rotation. Remember when Hank Steinbrenner said that Moose should pitch more like Jamie Moyer? Looks like maybe Hank knew what he was talking about – that directly coincided with the beginning of this 8-of-9 run.
Derek Jeter had his own milestone moment last night, moving into third place on the Yankees’ all-time hit list and passing Mickey Mantle. Jeter’s in some pretty select company there — Lou Gehrig is first and Babe Ruth second. He says he doesn’t belong there, but Joe Girardi (among others) disagrees. Someday you’ll be visiting the new Yankee Stadium and looking at Jeter’s plaque in Monument Park, there’s just no doubt about it.
Don’t count on Jason Giambi being in the lineup today after having treatment all during Wednesday’s game. He’s still pretty sore, from all accounts. The Yankees will try to “sleep fast” with a somewhat-later report time to get to the Stadium on Thursday afternoon for what used to be known as a Businessman’s Delight. I’m not sure how many people come to ballgames wearing shirts and ties anymore. Seems that’s gone the way of the three-martini lunch. More likely, you’d just blow off work altogether and call in sick.
Lots of 2008 First Year Player Draft coverage on tap for Thursday. In case you haven’t noticed, the Draft is kind of a big deal here at MLB.com. The Yankees are up 28th and then have a Joba Chamberlain Compensation Pick at 44 for losing Luis Vizcaino to the Rockies. Their second round pick is 75.
Wang in the Win-dy city
There was a funny moment last night in the Yankees clubhouse, when Chien-Ming Wang was conducting his postgame interview session with reporters. Wang is lockering next to Joba Chamberlain here in Chicago, and Chamberlain literally climbed inside his locker while Wang spoke, staring over Wang’s shoulder, making faces and doing almost anything he could to try and distract Wang. It didn’t work and Wang got through his interview fine.
Later, the conversation turned to how Wang is now the quickest pitcher to reach 50 career wins since Dwight Gooden did it with the Mets. Wang said he didn’t know who Gooden was, listening attentively as someone recounted Gooden’s early days with the Mets and later his no-hitter for the Yankees.
Then, someone dropped the name ‘Doc Gooden.’ Now, that guy, Wang knew.
“He does know!” Chamberlain yelled, calling back all of the reporters who had left the conversation.
The Yankees were pretty giddy all around last night. Jason Giambi was asked something about seeing his batting average on the scoreboard and Derek Jeter started hollering, “Don’t do it, Jason, don’t look at it! Just don’t look!”
Funny what winning can do. The Moose is on the loose tonight, with first pitch at 8:11 p.m. ET. Here’s a great stat courtesy of SNY.tv’s Michael Salfino (full article here):
“Mussina has generated swinging strikes 11 times this year on 319 pitches. That’s five percent of strikes. At his peak, his rate was over three times that and it was 13 percent as recently as 2006. Last year, it was nine percent.”
Sunday at the Stadium
The Yankees will try, try again to get the rest of their slumbering bats going this afternoon under cloudy skies in the Bronx. They haven’t looked much like a lineup to be considered a 1,000 run threat, but hey, it’s five games. So far Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez have been the main guys. We’ll also see how Jason Giambi responds after tweaking his left groin while running the bases in yesterday’s 6-3 loss.
The headline of this post is somewhat misleading (sorry!). I have my first day off of the regular season today, as Anthony DiComo will be bringing you all the coverage on yankees.com. Chien-Ming Wang gets the start for New York opposite James Shields.
Already, a rubber game
Phil Hughes received some of the loudest cheers when the Yankees were introduced before Tuesday’s game, and it’s clear the fan base has high hopes for the youngest member of their pitching staff. It’s almost strange to say that just because Hughes’ demeanor really doesn’t lend itself to youth. He may be 21 but, to me, he carries himself like a veteran already.
Hughes gets the ball rolling on his 2008 campaign tonight in the rubber game of a three-game series with the Blue Jays. Will Jorge Posada appear in the lineup? Will Jason Giambi continue to resemble a dancing bear at first base? Stay tuned. I thought an excellent defensive first baseman — hi, Doug Mientkiewicz — would have caught the ball that Giambi fell into the photo box chasing, but when you throw Giambi out there, you’re basically hoping he’ll knock everything around him down and scoop throws, which he actually is quite adept at doing.
Lessons from yesterday — don’t steal from the Yankees and don’t talk on your cell phone while driving. Mike Mussina looked just OK to me but I was impressed with his ability to spot his curveball, the Frank Thomas hit-by-pitch notwithstanding. If Mussina gives you three earned runs in 5 2/3 innings every time out, I think you have to take that. They won’t face A.J. Burnett every day.
Bryan Hoch
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