08/17: Yankees vs. Tigers, August 16th
Posted by: James
Well, that was anti-climactic. Here come the Tigers to start off a 4-game set and they lead off with their best starting pitcher, Justin Verlander. The Yanks countered with Mike Mussina, who had been pitching well (against lesser teams). Well, I'd love to be more explicit and go into detail but it was a really annoying loss and the losing streak has now hit 3. Honestly, most of the drama was taken out of the game in the first inning when Moose got into trouble (which was not helped by an A-Rod error) and ended up giving up a grand slam to Carlos Guillen. All told, Mussina was lit up for seven runs (six earned) and gave up nine hits, two walks and struck out two. Low K rates do not help Moose as his resurgence over the past month had a lot to do with him bringing his K rate closer to his career average.
The Yankees weren't getting horrible at bats against Verlander, they simply didn't capitalize when they could have. Leaving 11 guys on base certainly didn't help their cause. Still, the Yankees did what they usually do, i.e. work deep counts to try go get the starter out of the game...and it worked. However, Jim Leyland kept Verlander in for 5 1/3 innings and a 119 pitches and the Yankees continued to underperform against power pitchers (87 OPS+ vs. 112 OPS+ against finesse pitchers).
The bullpen was OK for the most part with everyone (including Farnsworth) working scoreless appearances except for Ron Villone who gave up a homer to Pudge Rodriguez in the seventh. The Yankees scored two runs off of Todd Jones (how is he still a closer?) in the ninth (RBIs from Matsui and Jorge ) but that just made the game seem a lot closer than it really was.
It was a disheartening loss and moved the Yankees to .5 back of Seattle for the Wild Card. Am I bummed about a 3 game losing streak? Yep. Am I in a panic? Nope. I fully expect the Yankees to bounce back to take the next three games and for Boston to lose 2 out of three to the L.A. Angels. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen...but I'm not panicking just yet.
The Yankees weren't getting horrible at bats against Verlander, they simply didn't capitalize when they could have. Leaving 11 guys on base certainly didn't help their cause. Still, the Yankees did what they usually do, i.e. work deep counts to try go get the starter out of the game...and it worked. However, Jim Leyland kept Verlander in for 5 1/3 innings and a 119 pitches and the Yankees continued to underperform against power pitchers (87 OPS+ vs. 112 OPS+ against finesse pitchers).
The bullpen was OK for the most part with everyone (including Farnsworth) working scoreless appearances except for Ron Villone who gave up a homer to Pudge Rodriguez in the seventh. The Yankees scored two runs off of Todd Jones (how is he still a closer?) in the ninth (RBIs from Matsui and Jorge ) but that just made the game seem a lot closer than it really was.
It was a disheartening loss and moved the Yankees to .5 back of Seattle for the Wild Card. Am I bummed about a 3 game losing streak? Yep. Am I in a panic? Nope. I fully expect the Yankees to bounce back to take the next three games and for Boston to lose 2 out of three to the L.A. Angels. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen...but I'm not panicking just yet.
