Tagged: Mike Scoscia
And The Award Goes To…. (With a P.S.)
Baseball’s version of the Oscars gets underway Monday while I’ll be on a plane back to California. So in anticipation, I thought I’d add my totally biased, completely Yankees-centric two cents on who should win.
1) AL Rookie of the Year: Alfredo Aceves
I know, I know. The award will probably go to Elvis Andrus. But Aceves was 10-1 this season. That’s a lot of wins for a reliever, even a long reliever. Yes, Dave Robertson had the best strikeout to innings ratio (63 Ks in 43.2 IP), but I don’t think he qualifies until next year. So congrats, Alfredo. In your honor, every Yankee fan should have fettucini alfredo some time this week.
2) AL Cy Young Award: CC Sabathia
Sure, you can talk about Greinke, Verlander and King Felix, but CC won 19 games and threw 230 innings. What’s more, he struck out 197 batters and only walked 67. He was the guy who fronted the staff, plain and simple. He wasn’t just a horse; he was a giant horse.
P.S. Honorable mention goes to Mo. He may be “just” a closer, but his name has to figure into any discussion of the year’s best pitcher.
3) AL Manager of the Year: Joe Girardi
While it’s true that Mike Scoscia pulled his team through adversity, I’m picking the guy we love to bash – and not just because the Yankees won 103 games with him at the helm, impressive as that is. I give him props for slotting Jeter in the leadoff hole, for sending the players off to the pool hall during spring training, for manipulating the rotation after Wang got injured, for leaving Hughes in the pen and for resting CC, AJ and Andy enough that they were good to go the extra mile in the playoffs. Joe, you gave me heartburn on a regular basis, so I’ll celebrate your honor by downing some of this.
#4) AL MVP: Derek Jeter
A case could be made for Joe Mauer, obviously, but I honestly think Jeter could win this one. He had 212 hits, batted .334 and won a Gold Glove. If all that’s not valuable to a team, I don’t know what is. I love Tex as a candidate too. And A-Rod deserves to be mentioned because the Yankees’ season turned around after he came off the DL. But I’m tipping my cap to the Captain.
And now a round of applause for all the winner.
P.S. Since many of the comments dealt with Cooperstown today, I wanted to add the pics Cheshirecat sent me from his recent trip there. The first one is a plaque of The Mick. (Be still my heart.) The second is of Cheshirecat standing next to the Holy Cow cow! Enjoy!
Turning The Tables On The Angels
The Yankees played small ball tonight, beating the invaders from Los Angeles of Anaheim by the score of 5-3. Actually, the Yanks played small ball, big ball and everything-in-between ball, juggling all elements of the game perfectly.
It was a pleasure to watch the Angels go down to defeat for a change – from Torii losing his shoe on a failed catch…
…to Scioscia having to pull Weaver, who pitched well but not well enough.
Aside from the homer he allowed to Guerrero in the first, Joba was very effective over his four innings, not walking a batter – hopefully a confidence boost for him. Aceves was his usual workmanlike self. Coke ended the seventh on Izturis‘ grounder to Jeter, whose brilliant play only added to his highlights reel for ’09. Hughes loaded the bases in the eighth – I guess he’s human after all – but got Morales to ground into a DP and limited the damage to one run.
Speaking of Morales, my Extra Innings package wouldn’t give me the YES feed, so I was stuck with the Angels announcers. I had to laugh when Gubicza said, “Kendry has made the Angels forget all about Mark Teixeira.”
Excuse me? Morales was 1-4 in tonight’s game and grounded into that DP I mentioned. Here’s what Teixeira did: he went 3-for-4 with two RBIs and was sparkling on defense. Nice try, Gubie.
Nick Swisher played big ball, going deep in the third. But it was Girardi’s small ball move in the bottom of the eighth that raised eyebrows.
After Tex doubled, he sent Gardner to pinch run for him. At first, I thought the move was really screwy.
“Hey,” I said to my husband. “What if this game goes into extras and we need Tex’s bat?”
“Speed kills,” he said. “Gardner will steal and score the go-ahead run, and Mo will close it out.”
Which is exactly what happened. Gardner stole and came home on Napoli’s errant pickoff attempt, and Mo notched his 40th save to reduce the Yankees’ magic number to 12. I’ve decided that Joe is a genius and my husband is psychic.
I asked him to predict how the Yankees will do on Tuesday night when Mitre takes on Halladay.
“Doc shut us out last time,” I said. “Will he do it again?”
Silence.
“Tell me!” I begged.
“Sorry, but I charge by the hour,” he said. “No money up front? No prediction.”
Well, that hardly seemed fair. So I came back with:
“No prediction? No dinner.”
That got his attention.
“The Yankees will win,” he said, taking the safe route.
You heard it here first.
Confessions of a She-Fan 