Hubris? You bet your sweet ....
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by user Icemanvt
After Toronto's 13-5 beatdown of the Yankees, I was tempted to put my thoughts into a game recap. But I wanted to talk more about Sidney Ponson than anything else, so it would do the rest of the game a disservice by doing that. And I didn't know how much opinion one could interject into a game recap. So at least this way, you know what you're getting for good or bad.
So anyway, onto the topic at hand or yesterday's pitcher of record for the Yankees, Sidney Ponson. Ponson, a/k/a the Fat Knight a/k/a Sir DWI, ended up with this line:
2.1 IP 5 H 6 R 6 ER 3 BB 5 K 2 HR
I'll go ahead and say it: that is a Towers-esque performance. It brings Ponson's ERA up to a nice round 10. More than a run per inning. I even called this result on Saturday.
What I'm more surprised about is how the Yankee fans on the net deluded themselves into thinking that Sir DWI can actually serviceable. I heard things like "He only costs 100k," "he only needs to keep us in the game" before he took his first start. Then after a half-way decent game against the Mariners (the team that is only ahead of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in on-base percentage and 10th in slugging percentage. I'll go ahead and say that the Seattle line-up, with their many, many holes, is not a representative sample of AL offenses. (Of course, the Jays are starting a series out in Seattle tonight, so it'll be the immovible object (the Mariners offense) vs. the irresistable force (the Blue Jays pitching)).
But this comes back to what purpose the Fat Knight serves. If you saw the box scores, the Yankees other back of the rotation filler pitched in this game, and performed just as well as Sir DWI did. So that leaves the Yankees in a quandry. Do you continue to go with your failed #5 starters and for how long? I can imagine that Brian Cashman is trying to come up with something, especially if the Yankees' goal is to reach the playoffs. Unfortunately, none of the trade rumors that have come up with the Yankees have even mentioned pitching. Considering that the #5 spot in the rotation for them is a bottomless pit of suck, and Jaret Wright is replacement level at best, the back of the Yankees rotation is a problem. Yet, there is nothing in the pipeline to help this obvious hole.
Perhaps Cashman thinks that if they can reach the playoffs, then a rotation of Mussina, Johnson, Wang + Filler will get things done. But you need to make the playoffs to do that. Fortunately, the White Sox are doing their part to bring the Wild Card back into play, so that becomes a possiblity. But if the Yankees are consigned to giving away 40% of their games, even without accounting for their opponents.
While a 4-man rotation could work in this situation, the injury/age risks just make this impossible. A four-man rotation would probably cause Mussina/Johnson to run out of gas by the time they make the playoffs anyway.
What this all comes down to is that both the Yankees and their fans are blind to the fact that this team needs starting pitching and badly if they want to make the playoffs. Picking up waiver-wire fodder like Sir DWI and Kris Wilson isn't going to get it done.
Next game up on the Sir DWI watch: Saturday vs. the Devil Rays at Yankee Stadium.
Date
Mon 07/24/06, 11:22 am EST
