Results tagged ‘ Roy Halladay ’
Yanks’ ‘Heart & Hustle’ nominee: Granderson
Curtis Granderson received the Heart and Hustle Award from another Yankees center fielder, Mickey Rivers, before Tuesday night’s game at Yankee Stadium. Granderson, the Yankees’ current center fielder, is the team’s representative for the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association’s annual award to honor active player who demonstrate a passion for the game of baseball and best embody the values, spirit and tradition of the game.
The MLBPAA formed 30 committees comprised of alumni players with established relationships to each club. One player from each major league team is chosen by the committees based on the passion, desire and work ethic demonstrated both on and off the field. As the season draws to a close, fans, all alumni and active players will vote to select the final winner from the 30 team winners.
Previous overall winners were Craig Biggio in 2006 and ’07, Grady Sizemore in 2008, Albert Pujols in 2009, Roy Halladay in 2010 and Torii Hunter in 2011.
The final winner for 2012 will be announced Tuesday, Nov. 13, at the 13th annual Legends for Youth Dinner in New York. The event is the primary fundraiser for the series of free Legends for Youth Baseball Clinics, which impact more than 10,000 children each year. Two of my favorite people in the game, Dave Winfield and Rusty Staub, will be honored at this year’s dinner. To purchase tickets for the event, visit http://ow.ly/ch395.
Winning pitcher still best way to describe CC
The question came to CC Sabathia, and he could have shattered the walls with a certain answer, if he cared to. But it is not his way to be angry or critical, so Sabathia responded in kind, without malice or disdain.
The question offered by a reporter was, “What does it mean to be the first pitcher this year to win 10 games?”
CC didn’t hesitate and said, “I’d like to say it’s a big deal, but it isn’t, really.”
Perfect. Sabathia seems to know that you can’t have it both ways. Last year, he led the American League in victories with 21, but come time to vote for the Cy Young Award Sabathia ended up losing out to the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez and his 13-12 record. Baseball writers defended the decision because Fernandez had scant run support yet ranked very high in some other statistical measures for pitchers.
There is even a segment of the baseball press, those who digest the gourmet stats, that believes pitching victories have no meaning whatsoever. If so, then why all the fuss about Sabathia getting to 10-4 Saturday at Yankee Stadium in the Yankees’ 8-3 victory over the Rockies? If winning games does not matter anymore, why bother even asking the question?
Truth be told, CC, there are some of us in the press box who still value the art of pitching your team to victory. As Roy Halladay, who owns two Cy Young Award trophies put it so well last winter, that is still part of the job description. Sabathia would prefer to stay neutral in the debate, and I don’t blame him.
Praise is due the big guy, but it won’t be long that you’ll be hearing from the stat geeks than any pitcher can win 10 games with the run support Sabathia gets. That’s coming next, you watch.
Oh, yes, the Yankees have scored runs in bunches behind Sabathia, whose support of 7.67 runs per game is tops in the majors. The Yankees have scored in double figures in six of his 17 starts with CC getting a ‘W’ each time out. It should be noted, however, that the Yankees have been shut out twice with Sabathia on the mound.
A year ago, Hernandez had the worst run support I have ever seen a quality pitcher have in all my years of covering big-league ball, which is more than I care to (and can’t always) remember. That King Felix put the record together than he did was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but I am not prepared to let a freak season become the game’s standard.
It is clear by now that the Yankees enjoy playing behind Sabathia, who earned his 50th victory in a Yankees uniform, in his 85th start. That matches what Chien-Ming Wang once did and is the best since Ron Guidry got to 50 victories with the Yankees in 1979 in his 82nd start in pinstripes. Playing behind Sabathia often puts the Yankees in such a comfort zone that they slug their way to victory.
“When you play behind CC, you’re not on the field very long,” manager Joe Girardi said.
The Yankees spent most of their time on the field at bat and scored eight more runs behind their ace. Alex Rodriguez, playing despite a sore right knee that has troubled him for a week, drove in three runs and scored another on a somewhat daring, hands-first slide into the plate in the third inning. A-Rod saw that the left fielder, Ryan Spilborghs, was fading toward center to make the catch on Nick Swisher’s fly ball and gave it a try. He went in on his hands, “because I wanted to give the catcher the least possible amount of body to tag,” Alex said.
Not a bad answer, actually.
Jorge Posada had three hits and an RBI in raising his batting average to .232. Rodriguez, Swisher, Brett Gardner, Curtis Granderson and Francisco Cervelli had two hits apiece. Mark Teixeira knocked in two runs with his 22nd home run, taking over the team lead. The only 0-fer in the lineup, ironically, was by Robinson Cano, who made six outs in four at-bats and ended his consecutive game hitting streak in day games at 24 games. The Yankees remain lights out in the daytime at 21-4.
Sabathia, who lowered his ERA to 3.25, took a five-hit shutout into the eighth only to lose it that inning on a two-out, RBI single by Seth Smith, who was pinch hitting for Todd Helton. Sabathia was so dominating that Rockies manager Jim Tracy removed All-Star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki after the seventh and pinch hit for Carlos Gonzalez and Helton in the eighth.
Talk about an early concession. But what else was there to do facing the daily double of the Yankees in broad daylight with CC Sabathia on the hill?
No reward to CC for 21 Ws
Yankees fans have reason to be upset that CC Sabathia did not win the American League Cy Young Award that was given instead by the Baseball Writers’ Association to the Mariners’ Felix Hernandez. Heck, the big guy didn’t even finish second as the Rays’ David Price was the runner-up.
One of the arguments made last year when the Royals’ Zack Greinke won in the AL with only 16 victories and the Giants’ Tim Lincecum in the National League with merely 15 was that there were no 20-game winners, so the field was much more open.
That was not the case this year. Sabathia was 21-7 and had plenty of other good numbers, too, including a 3.18 ERA, which is not shabby for a guy pitching in the AL East and hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium. That Hernandez won despite posting a record of 13-12 seems absurd until you look a bit deeper into his season and not just at the statistics that a lot of people believe are too esoteric but to which the increasing numbers-conscious are devoted.
Hernandez led the league in ERA (2.27) and innings (249 2/3) and was second in strikeouts (232), only one behind league leader Jered Weaver of the Angels. These are not intangible stats. They are pretty tangible, one might even say traditional.
Think of how Hernandez felt last year. He went 19-5 and couldn’t beat out Greinke. Hernandez said Thursday from his home in Venezuela that he did not know how to gauge this year’s balloting after what happened last year. “Are they going to tell me that I didn’t win enough games this year but that I won too many last year?” he asked me.
I told him one year to the next is different, which I still believe even though the recent voting indicates a trend may be developing. I hope not. The day when victories aren’t considered the important part of the pitching equation is the day you might as well stop keeping score. I mean, if pitching victories don’t mean anything, why are they still kept? Imagine trying to tell the Major League Players Association that pitching victories won’t be totaled any more? Good luck explaining that to the union.
It is interesting that the list of pitchers who have 300 or more career victories are all in the Hall of Fame except for those not yet eligible, whose names are Greg Maddux, Roger Clemens, Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson. It would seem that winning a lot of games is a big deal, huh?
This is all coming from someone who thought Hernandez was the best pitcher he saw this year. No knock on CC, who I probably would have voted for had I been on the committee, but look what Hernandez did in his three starts against the Yankees: 3-0, 0.35 ERA. That is not a misprint. He allowed 1 run, 16 hits and 8 walks with 31 strikeouts in 26 innings.
The only reason he did not pitch 27 innings for a third complete game against the Yankees was that Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu did not let him finish the Aug. 20 game at the Stadium while working on a four-hit shutout with 11 Ks. Writers in the press box can recall my reaction to that. I was beside myself, howling that Wakamatsu’s move was akin to grabbing the brush from Picasso before he could complete his painting. It was absolute disregard for artistic endeavor, and the manager deserved to be fired, which he eventually was.
Remember, though, that was a night Hernandez won, not one of the many games in which he pitched splendidly and either lost or got hung with a no-decision because of such scant run support by an offense that scratched out an average of 3.2 runs per game. The Mariners’ run support for Hernandez was 2.4 per game. Seattle scored two runs or fewer in 15 of his 34 starts. He was 2-10 with a 2.84 ERA in those games. In his nine no decisions, Hernandez pitched to a 1.92 ERA.
I kept in mind that in 1972 Steve Carlton won the NL Cy Young Award with a 27-10 record for a Phillies club whose overall mark was 59-97 and also averaged only 3.2 runs per game. The point of view of Sabathia supporters, of which there were three who gave him first-place approval on the ballot, came Tuesday from none other than this year’s NL winner, Roy Halladay, who had the same victory total as CC.
“Obviously, Felix’s numbers are very, very impressive,” Doc said. “But I think, ultimately, you look at how guys are able to win games. Sometimes the run support isn’t there, but you sometimes just find ways to win games. I think the guys that are winning and helping their teams deserve a strong look, regardless of how good Felix’s numbers are. It definitely could go either way; it’s going to be interesting. But I think when teams bring guys over, they want them to, ultimately at the end of the day, help them win games.”
It is hard to argue with that logic.
Cy Young holiday for Halladay
No American League club was happier to see Roy Halladay cross over into the National League this year than the Yankees. The one bad thing for the Yanks about Halladay going from the Blue Jays to the Phillies was that it triggered Philadelphia trading Cliff Lee back to the AL with the Mariners.
But it was good riddance for Halladay, who regularly thumped the Yankees to the tune of 18-7 with a 2.98 ERA, seven complete games (including three shutouts) and 195 strikeouts in 38 appearances (36 starts) covering 253 1/3 innings. Halladay did not find the new Yankee Stadium to his liking. He was 1-1 with a 6.16 ERA there in 2009 after having gone 7-4 with a 2.97 ERA in the old Stadium.
Halladay had a remarkable first season in the NL this year and was rewarded Tuesday by winning the Cy Young Award. He became the fifth pitcher to win the award in both leagues, having won in the AL with Toronto in 2003, and the 16th multiple winner.
The righthander was in Mexico on vacation when he received word of his election. I had the opportunity to tell him how popular he is in press boxes throughout North America because it is an extremely pleasurable experience to watch him pitch. He is a pro’s pro with no wasted motion and a focus that is sadly lacking among starting pitchers of this period.
“That’s very satisfying to hear,” the man called “Doc” said. “I hope the fans feel the same way.”
Halladay was the 13th unanimous choice in NL voting as he received all 32 first-place votes from two writers in each league city to score a perfect 224 points, based on a tabulation system that rewards seven points for first place, four for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America expanded the Cy Young Award ballot from three to five pitchers this year.
Halladay, 33, posted a 21-10 record with a 2.44 ERA in 33 starts and led the league in victories, innings (250 2/3), complete games (9) and shutouts (4) and was second in strikeouts (219). He pitched a perfect game May 29 at Miami in a 1-0 victory over the Marlins. Balloting takes place prior to the start of post-season play, so his no-hitter over the Reds in Game 1 of the NL Division Series was not a factor in the voting.
Cardinals righthander Adam Wainwright (20-11, 2.42 ERA), who finished third in 2009, was the runner-up with 122 points based on 28 votes for second, three for third and one for fifth. Rockies righthander Ubaldo Jimenez (19-8, 2.88 ERA) was third with 90 points. Halladay, Wainwright and Jimenez were the only pitchers named on all the ballots. Righthanders Tim Hudson (17-9, 2.83 ERA) of the Braves and Josh Johnson (11-6, 2.30 ERA) of the Marlins rounded out the top five. In all, 11 pitchers received votes.
Halladay joined the company of Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Gaylord Perry as Cy Young Award winners in both leagues. Clemens won six in the AL (1986, ’87 and ’91 with the Red Sox; 1997 and ’98 with the Blue Jays; 2001 with the Yankees) and one in the NL (2004 with the Astros). Johnson won four in the NL (1999 through 2002 with the Diamondbacks) and one in the AL (1995 with the Mariners). Martinez won two in the AL (1999 and 2000 with the Red Sox) and one in the NL (1997 with the Expos). Perry won one in the AL (1972 with the Indians) and one in the NL (1978 with the Padres).
Unanimous winners in the NL were Sandy Koufax all three times he won and Greg Maddux twice among his four victories, along with Johnson, Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Rick Sutcliffe, Dwight Gooden, Orel Hershiser and Jake Peavy. There has been a unanimous winner in the AL eight times: Clemens, Martinez and Johan Santana twice each, Denny McLain and Ron Guidry.
It marked the seventh time a Phillies pitcher won the award, including Carlton four times. The other winners from Philadelphia were John Denny and Steve Bedrosian. In addition to Koufax, Maddux, Carlton, Clemens, Martinez, Johnson, Perry, Gibson, McLain and Santana, other pitchers to have won the award more than once were Tom Seaver and Jim Palmer three times each, Bret Saberhagen, Tom Glavine and Tim Lincecum twice apiece.
Halladay is in pretty heady company and deserves to be.
Umps off to shaky playoff start
The 2009 post-season was filled with questionable calls by umpires, an embarrassing situation at a time when the game is on a national stage. The 2010 tournament is only two days old, and already head-scratching work by the dudes in the black hats has stained the games.
We have only had four games and already two managers have been ejected for arguing calls at a time when umpires are instructed to be patient because so much is at stake in the playoffs. Actually, the heave-ho’s were justified since in each case the managers were griping over ball-strike calls, which they know is a no-no.
Rays manager Joe Maddon was tossed Thursday afternoon for complaining about a checked swing by Michael Young that was ruled a ball one pitch before the Rangers third baseman smacked a three-run home run. Maddon and the Rays were already sore about a phantom foul tip call on Carlos Pena from Game 1 that helped Cliff Lee get out of a bases-loaded jam. In the same at-bat, Pena appeared to have been hit by a pitch but was not awarded first base.
Twins manager Ron Gardenhire also went wiggy Wednesday night over a Carl Pavano pitch to Yankees DH Lance Berkman on 1-2 that looked as if it had the inside corner for strike three. Plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt thought otherwise, and Berkman doubled in the go-ahead run on the next pitch. Gardenhire came out to talk to Pavano, but he really wanted to shout at Wendelstedt and paid the price with a seat in his office.
Just the night before, Yankees closer Mariano Rivera had to get a fifth out in his four-out save because a clean catch in right field by Greg Golson was ruled a trap by umpire Chris Guccione. Even the Twins had to shake their heads over that one as a reminder of how Joe Mauer got hosed out of a crucial double in last year’s ALDS at Yankee Stadium.
Let’s not hear about the intense scrutiny caused by HDTV technology. Plain eyesight showed that all these calls were wrong. Let’s just be grateful that none of these guys loused up Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay’s no-hitter.
Don Larsen has company
Props to Roy Halladay, who had the greatest post-season debut in history by throwing a no-hitter for the Phillies over the Reds Wednesday night in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, but Don Larsen still stands alone.
Doc’s no-no was the continuance of a season of dominance that made him the favorite for the National League Cy Young Award to go with the one he collected in the American League for the Blue Jays in 2003. Halladay threw a perfect game during the regular season, so he joined four other pitchers with two no-hitters in the same year.
The list includes Allie Reynolds, who did it for the Yankees in 1951. Yogi Berra told me his most embarrassing moment was when he dropped a foul pop by Ted Williams that would have been the 27th out of the second of the Chief’s no-nos. Williams fouled up the next pitch, and this time Yogi caught it.
Reds lefthander Johnny Vander Meer was the first pitch with two no-hitters in the same year, 1938, and they were back-to-back. Tigers righthander Virgil “Fire” Trucks did it the year after Reynolds, 1952, which was quite a feat for a pitcher whose record that season was 5-19. Of course, any list of no-hitting pitchers usually includes Nolan Ryan, who pitched the first two of the seven in his career in 1973. I worked in Detroit at the time and covered the second one, at Tiger Stadium, grateful that it was a Saturday day game, and I didn’t have to deal with deadline pressure.
Halladay is only the second pitcher to throw a no-hitter in a post-season game. I don’t mean to take anything away from the performance – the Doctor operated magnificently – but it was not the equal of Larsen’s gem that occurred in the ultimate post-season round, the World Series, and was perfect as well. Halladay came within one out of what would have been his second perfect game this year, but that one walk was enough to drop him a notch below Larsen.
Larsen’s 97-pitch surgery of a powerful Dodgers lineup in Game 5 of the 1956 Series remains the finest single effort for a pitcher in baseball history. For one night, Roy Halladay came awfully close to matching it.
Vazquez comes up small
If Javier Vazquez was pitching Wednesday night for a spot on the Yankees’ post-season roster – and he almost certainly was – it was not an ideal audition in Toronto. The Yankees showed they placed value on the game by starting an 80-percent A-list lineup on the night after clinching a playoff berth.
Manager Joe Girardi decided to hold Andy Pettitte back to Friday night at Boston and handed the ball to Vazquez, who began the season in the rotation but eventually pitched himself into the second tier of the bullpen because of too many outings that resembled this last start. The Blue Jays jumped on Vazquez for seven runs and 10 hits, including three home runs, in 4 2/3 innings. Javy walked two batters, threw a wild pitch and had no strikeouts, but at least he did not hit any batters as he did in his previous appearance Sunday night when he plunked three Red Sox in a row.
Girardi still has decisions to make about his post-season staff, but it would appear the locks are starters CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, Phil Hughes and A.J. Burnett and relievers David Robertson, Joba Chamberlain, Boone Logan, Kerry Wood and Mariano Rivera. Assuming that the Yankees will go with an 11-man staff, that would leave two openings with the candidates being Vazquez, Chad Gaudin, Sergio Mitre, Dustin Moseley, Ivan Nova and Royce Ring.
Perhaps I am making a big assumption about Burnett, who has been horrid in the second half, but the Yankees will need four starters. There has been some good talk about Nova, but he is a rookie with no post-season experience. As inconsistent as A.J. has been, his track record is superior to the others, including Vazquez, who did not advance his case in the 8-4 loss to the Blue Jays.
There is a good chance the Yankees will take several looks this week at Ring, who spent most of the year at Triple A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre but has big-league experience and would give Girardi a second left-handed option out of the pen along with Logan, an option most managers would love. Ring retired the only batter he faced Wednesday night. The most impressive inning from an auditioning pitcher was by Mitre, who struck out the side in the eighth.
Vazquez needed to prove he can be an effective innings soaker but was little more than a punching bag and put the Yankees in a 7-0 hole in the fifth. Like many other games this September, the Yankees had to go uphill throughout the evening.
Toronto lefthander Brett Cecil shut them down for five innings before making the mistake of hitting Robinson Cano with a pitch after Alex Rodriguez had homered leading off the sixth. That’s 14 seasons of at least 30 homers and 100 RBI for A-Rod. The Yankees tagged Cecil for two more runs, but the rally died on a double play. The Jays hung on to improve Cecil’s record against the Yankees this year to 4-0 with a 2.67 ERA, which is Roy Halladay territory.
The loss ruined the Yankees’ opportunity to move ahead of the Rays in the American League East standings. Tampa Bay maintains a one-game edge in the loss column.
Citizens Bank Stadium?
It wasn’t exactly what Camden Yards is like when the Yankees are in Baltimore, but Yankee Stadium had a fair share of Phillies fans in the seats for Thursday night’s finale of the 2009 World Series rematch, won by the Phils, two games to one. Who would have thought the Yankees’ only victory in the series was the game started by Roy Halladay?
The visitors from Philadelphia, many of whom were clad in the team’s color red, did not have much to cheer about the first three innings when Andy Pettitte retired the first nine batters in order. Along the way, Andy picked up two strikeouts to move into sole possession of second place on the franchise’s career list. The first punchout tied Pettitte with Ron Guidry for the runner-up spot, and he moved ahead of Gator with the second, career No. 1,779. Andy still has a ways to go catch the all-time leader, Whitey Ford, at 1,956.
Cheering could be heard when the Phillies struck for a run in the fourth on a single by Ryan Howard. It was unearned due to an error by Ramiro Pena, who was playing third base in place of Alex Rodriguez, again the designated hitter as he works his way back from tendinitis of the right hip flexor.
Yankees fans then began booing Phillies fans. This went back and forth again in the fifth when Shane Victorino pushed the Phils’ lead to 3-0 with a two-run home run.
The Yankees didn’t give their fans much to cheer about until the sixth. Held to two singles and a walk through five innings by Kyle Kendrick in his first career start against the Yankees, they put together a two-out rally on a walk to Mark Teixeira and singles by Rodriguez and Robinson Cano.
A-Rod, whose running of late has been gingerly, should have been dead at third base, but Howard inexplicably held the ball after cutting off right fielder Jason Werth’s throw and made no attempt for Rodriguez. Nothing came of it as Nick Swisher fouled out to third baseman Placido Polanco, who made a terrific catch sprawling across the tarpaulin.
Yankees fans took charge of the noise in the seventh when Pettitte struck out Howard with the bases loaded to end the inning. It was another milestone for Andy, who tied Bob Shawkey for fifth place on the Yankees’ career innings list at 2,493. Fourth place belongs to Lefty Gomez at 2,497.
With disgruntled Yankees fans leaving early, the Stadium sounded more like Citizens Bank Park in the ninth as Joba Chamberlain, Damaso Marte and Chan Ho Park let the Phillies pull away with four runs. The inning ended because a hard grounder by Ben Francisco struck Raul Ibanez running between second and third.
But none of the umpires apparently saw it. Derek Jeter pointed to Ibanez’s leg and ran off the field, followed by the rest of the Yankees. Phillies manager Charlie Manuel wondered what was going on. There were no Yankees on the field, yet there was no call by an umpire until after a conference among the four plate umpire Tom Hallion made an out sign. Truly weird.
There will be more of this cheering for both sides Friday night when the second installment of this year’s Subway Series comes to the Stadium. Yankees fans must hope to do a better job of drowning out the sounds of Mets fans than they did against the Phillies.
Jack O'Connell
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