5 Random Observations: Yankees Series

I'm sure most of you were sleeping through this series, what with meaningless games dragging on over the four-hour mark mid-week in September and whatnot. Even the players are complaining at this point. In any case, the Sox held a 1.5 game lead coming into the series, and a half-game margin going out, leaving New York up 8.5 games over Tampa in the Wild Card race. Without further adieu, here's a few notes about the last three days:

1. Long, Long, Long: We all know these rivalry games are as long as John Lackey's face after a trip to a Mensa meeting, but Jon Lester's first inning in last night's 4-2 loss was brutal. It took the Boston ace 43 pitches to strike out the side, which sent me on one of my many empty stat searches. I tried in vane to find the record for the highest amount of pitches thrown while striking out the side, but came up with nothing. My guess is this inning has to be close. Somebody needs to get on this so I can sleep at night.

2. MVP Watch: I'm probably overly obsessed with this award, but with four AL candidates showcasing their talents in this one series alone, the individual race was more in the forefront than the chase for the pennant. That said, in 15 games against Boston, Curtis Granderson has hit just .218/.377/.436, and he didn't fare much better over this last three-game set. He did, however, make this run-saving grab off the bat of Jed Lowrie in the 6th inning last night:

Granderson: "These grass stains will be hell to remove."

Granderson, who seemed to be the favorite to take the award coming into the series, did nothing to push the needle in either direction, while Jacoby Ellsbury continued to make his case, hitting .364 with a 1.264 OPS over the past three days.

3. Rocco Cervelli: The boisterous New York catcher has been dubbed by many "The Yankee Clapper" following his antics during the past week, which is okay by me. Endearing to New York fans and rage-inducing to Boston rooters, Cervelli and his new moniker simultaneously prove puns can still be hilarious and that this rivalry hasn't lost its punch. Anything that stirs things up like that among playoff contenders this late in the season is a welcome sight.

4. On Second Thought: This incident deserves a closer look. Here are the four stages of emotion, as occurred in Tuesday's scuffle:

Anger.

Confusion.

Revenge (Sabathia)/Dementia (Posada).

Penis Envy.

5. Adrian Gonzalez/David Ortiz: You may have noticed the Boston firstbaseman's torrid pace was slowed down considerably by Yankee pitching. He posted just a .167/.286/.250 slash line, with 0 RBI this time around. Meanwhile, Big Papi is as hot as he's ever been. Since returning from a 10-day hiatus on August 24th, he's hit .500/.559/1.067, with 4 HRs and 9 RBI over eight games. Yikes.

Granderson Grabbing Lead In MVP Race?

With New York coming into town, 2 games back of the division lead and 6.5 games up on the Rays for the Wild Card, the upcoming three game set is significant, but probably won't decide anything in the long run. Which allows me to focus on the individual awards, things we all know are far more important and entertaining than any team accomplishments. 

Lately, the focus of the AL MVP race has been focused with laser-like intensity on Yankees centerfielder Curtis Granderson. Between his participation in the tri-headed grand slam extravaganza last week against the A's, and mashing his 37th and 38th homers yesterday in Baltimore, it seems as if he's grabbing this thing by the face. 

Since I love arbitrary statistical splits, let's take a look at his numbers from the last 18 games. His batting line is an impressive .304/.435/.797, which works out to a...wait for it...1.232 OPS during that stretch. The man is carrying the Yanks right now. Add in his 10 home runs and 18 RBI over the 18 games, and it's no wonder Granderson's staring at me over my morning coffee, monopolizing the baseball highlights. Aside from personal issues of baseball players watching me through television screens, the Yankee outfielder is giving the rest of the league major fits as well.

So, how is his competition playing out? A quick look:

(league leaders in bold ital)

Player	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS	HR	RBI	fWAR	rWAR
Bautista	.312	.452	.640	1.092	37	83	7.8	7.9
Ellsbury	.312	.369	.521	.889	23	82	7.4	6.4
Pedroia	.308	.398	.474	.872	17	71	7.2	6.6
Granderson	.278	.376	.595	.971	38	107	6.8	5.4
Gonzalez	.345	.406	.559	.965	23	103	5.8	6.0

Clearly, these stats do a bit of a disservice to players like Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia, as a good portion of their value comes in base running and defense, but they're more than holding their own in the offensive categories as well. Jose Bautista, despite falling back to the pack a little lately, is still having the best year statistically, while Adrian Gonzalez is making a charge over the last week, clawing his way back into the discussion.

Having said all that, it's looking good for Granderson, because the assumption is that voters will split on the Red Sox candidates, and Bautista won't get the support on a non-playoff contender. Which leaves the Yankees outfielder. My guess is that he takes it, unless one of the guys from Boston gets red hot the rest of the way and his teammates fall off. Stay tuned.

Five Observations On Series With Texas

We were warned coming into this series: the Rangers are a supremely talented club. One that, while perhaps not superior to Boston or New York in any of the four major areas (lineup, starters, bullpen, defense), is more consistent across the board than their eastern rivals. Nobody was paying attention to them. East Coast bias and all that.


While it may be true that Texas belongs in the American League power-triumvirate with Boston and New York, the Red Sox decisive 3-1 series win reminded everyone why they are the AL favorite to go to the World Series. Here's a quick roundup of how that happened:


1. Adrian Gonzalez: Take a look at this completely unscientific, but wholly awesome split...


July 31-Aug 22: .274/.337/.369, .706 OPS, O HR, 5 RBI
Last 3 Games: .583/.643/1.833, 2.476, 5 HR, 8 RBI


Apparently, he misplaced his cape for a month, when Dustin Pedroia was discovered to have it balled up in the bottom of his locker as a practical joke. Gonzalez now has his trusty cape, and superhero status back. Last night, he told mlb.com's Ian Browne: 


"I hit them in spurts. Everybody knows that. When I have a good swing, it's just a feeling I have, and you hit them in bunches. It's a time right now when I feel good. Hopefully I can continue swinging like that tomorrow."


2. Professor Lackey's Wild Ride: I will continue to maintain that John Lackey makes me nervous, and demonstrated why in the 11-5 win on Tuesday, as he was bailed out by the offense gorging itself on the souls of innocent Ranger pitching. The fact that the words "nervous" and "John Lackey" appear in the same sentence isn't exactly a Jamesian observation, but it's worth pointing out since Lackey is a deceptive 7-1 over his last nine starts. Beware the Ides of  Lackey!


3. Andrew Miller: Last night, Miller pitched 6 and 1/3 innings of scoreless ball in his best start of the season. Which sort of makes me mad. Every time he pitches well, we're reminded of his tantalizing abilities. From his high draft pedigree (6th overall by the Tigers), to his tearing up the college ranks (Golden Spikes finalist at UNC),  to being named Cape league MVP, his left arm donates talent by osmosis to anyone within a five foot radius. Will he ever truly put it together and become a front of the line starter? Probably not. But the building blocks are there, and it's frustrating. I hate guys like that. Grrrr.


On a side note, The Boston Globe's Peter Abraham twote during last night's game: "Andrew Miller leaves in the 7th inning up 6-0 and Texas is playing 'Hit the Road, Jack.' Um ...." Hilarious.


4. Jacoby Ellsbury/David Ortiz Return: Neither player skipped a beat offensively, but just as important, Ellsbury was back playing golden glove caliber centerfield. Also, Papi needed to rest his aching bones for the playoff run. Well done by both the front office and the player in each case. 


5. Must be the blue eyes: Aside from a home run at the expense of Professor Lackey on Tuesday, reigning MVP Josh Hamilton was held in check, hitting just .167 in the series. Hamilton's woes contributed to the Rangers being outscored 30-11 in the four game set.


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AND ANOTHER THING: 


More surprising (to me at least), than the fact that the Yankees hit three grand slams in a single game for the first time in baseball history (in a 22-9 win over Oakland), was that Jorge Posada played second base. I wasn't so sure if his knees were still considered joints or just pegs at this point, but Joe Girardi apparently thought it was a good idea to  put him in the field. More surprising than that, I saw a graphic on SportsCenter this morning under a shot of Posada fielding a routine ground ball, saying that the C/DH was playing second for the first time since 1991. 


Wait a minute, he's done this before? We all know that I am a liar and an idiot, but  missing that one is surprising even for me. I blame the air pressure changes from Irene racing up the east coast.

The Lesson? Is Very Bad to Steal Jobu's Rum

Well. Don't I feel silly.

Approximately 24 hours after my Adrian Gonzalez bash-fest, #28 ended his streak of 95 plate appearances with his 19th and 20th homers of the year. According to both baseball-reference and fangraphs.com, I am an idiot. Then again, maybe I should spew nonsense more often, if only to attribute events on the field to the wildly inaccurate claims I make on this blog.

A-Gone

As mentioned before, Adrian Gonzalez has just one homerun since the all-star break. But upon further review, it's a tad worse than that. Since June 18, Gonzalez has stood in the batter's box 254 times. He has exactly three homeruns. To be fair, he's hit .330/.398/.442, with an OPS of .840 in those 55 games. In a different world, this would be more than satisfactory. But here's the thing--the Sox lineup has hit the dog days with three all-stars out, and Mike Aviles isn't gonna carry the offense. The power outage is going to continue to put a damper on things, and Gonzalez needs to step up. The sad thing is, though the Boston will likely survive the drought, he's hitting himself out of the MVP race.

Here's a look at the MLB leaders in fWAR as of today:

WAR:
Jose Bautista 7.7
Dustin Pedroia 6.9
Jacoby Ellsbury 6.6
Ben Zobrist 6.4
Justin Upton 6.2
(www.fangraphs.com)

Notice that four out of the top five are AL hitters, and two of those are teammates. At least Gonzalez's mini-slide will help Ellsbury's and Pedroia's MVP cases. Obviously, WAR isn't the be-all and end-all of stats, but it is a pretty decent measuring stick of a player's worth. Gonzalez is sitting at 5.0 fWAR at the moment.

Also worth noting, is the fact that Gonzalez has driven in Carl Crawford just three times all season. Granted, the pricey outfielder hasn't hit in front of the former Padre much, but if Theo Epstein was told about this before the season started (among other things), he might have thought twice about Crawford's deal. Just sayin'.

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AND ANOTHER THING:

I won't go on and on about Starlin Castro and what's wrong with today's athlete, plenty of others have done that today already. But I recently read RZA's autobiography The Tao of Wu, and couldn't help but think of the parallels with the hip-hop mega group circa 1997. As anyone who went to see Wu-Tang in those days can attest, you were lucky if you saw three or four out of the nine members at any given show on any given night. With guys as talented as that, it was sad to see them waste it at their peak by pissing off their fans. All they had to do was show up and do their thing. Castro hasn't hit his peak yet (probably), but his spaceout on national TV last night brought that to mind, and made me a little sad. Freakin' entertainers.