MVN - Most Valuable Network

Game 77: Athletics at Yankees (W)

Oakland Athletics (40-38) vs. New York Yankees (36-39)

Kennedy (2-5, 3.98) vs. Mussina (3-5, 4.98)

Jun. 29, 2007 @ 7:05 p.m. @ Yankee Stadium

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9		R	H	E
Oakland Athletics	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0		1	8	0
New York Yankees	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	X		2	9	0
Mussina (W, 4-5) Kennedy (L, 2-6) Rivera (S, 10)

Preview:

A 1-8 road trip beatdown has finally concluded and the Yankees have crawled home, leaving behind a trail of blood and broken dreams. The Yankees look to Mike Mussina to help right the ship against Oakland tonight. Mussina pitching means that the anemic offense becomes even more punchless as Posada moves to DH and Damon takes his usual place on the bench.

Key Matchups:

• Bobby Abreu vs. the invisible demons in his head: Make no mistake, Bobby Abreu would probably look more comfortable on a psychiatrist’s couch than in a batter’s box, currently. He is slumping just as badly as he was earlier in the season and once again not drawing walks. Streaky hitting will kill you. He was good when everyone else was good and has gone ice cold when the hot team hitting stopped.
• Matsui & Cano vs Kennedy: Matsui and Cano are two other slumping left-handed bat who has killed Yankee rallies and scoring opportunities. They are hitting .280 and .205 (!) with runners in scoring position. Those numbers are death to an offense.
• Mussina vs. the Oakland base runners: In Mussina’s last start, he allowed 5 stolen bases. Yankee pitchers in general have been beaten up on by base stealers, but Mussina’s 86 mph fastball doesn’t do him any favors.

Prediction:

Unfortunately, there was no pre-game altercation with Barry Bonds last weekend and Bonds remains an active player. In tonight’s game, a brush with death will be averted. Bobby Abreu will attempt to lay down a bunt with 1 out and a runner in scoring position. He will be thrown out and the runner will not advance to third. On his way back to the dugout, Abreu will be tackled by a security guard. In his official report, the guard will claim that he saw a sniper laser site flash across Bobby’s back. Reportedly, the beam originated from somewhere near the owner’s box.

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Recap:

Mussina pitched a solid game, going 7 innings with only 84 pitches and the offense came from the usual suspects, A-Rod and Posada. Rivera picked up the 4 out save as the Yankees won the home opener and hopefully left their woeful away game play behind them.

Notable Performances:

• Alex Rodriguez went 3 for 3 to raise his batting average to .334 and collected his 79th RBI. He’s currently on pace for 166. He smells a shiny new contract.
• Jeter made a stellar (Jeteresque?) play going far to his right, fielding, leaping, pivoting in mid-air, and firing a strong throw to first. I know its a play he makes on a semi-regular basis, but it’s still a beautiful thing.
• Mariano came in with 2 outs in the 8th with a 1 run lead and two runners on. He struck out Cust swinging on a 94 mph fastball and then struck out 2 more in the 9th to nail down the save. It was a dominating outing and when all else is going to Hell in the Yankee world, its nice to know that Mariano still shuts it down. Rivera was forced to get a 4-out save because of the continued ineptness of…
• Kyle Farnsworth. Farnsworth was brought in to pitch the 8th and allowed the tying and go-ahead runs to reach base with less than two outs. When he was pulled for Rivera, the greatest reliever this world has ever seen, he wouldn’t even make eye contact with Torre when he passed him the ball and then he threw an absolute tantrum as he entered the dugout. This marks 35 appearances for Farnsworth and he has gone 1-2-3 in an inning thrice. Three times. Tres. Trois. Farnsworth all but spit in Torre’s face tonight and according to Peter Abraham, he refused to comment on his behavior after the game. It’s pretty safe to say that he officially stamped his passport for his way out of town. It was bad enough that he’s been unreliable (or to be more accurate, reliable in his unreliability), but he’s going to be a jerk too? We’ve already got a jerk coming in in the form of Shea Hillenbrand. One malcontent is enough.

Notes:

Jeter went hitless tonight. You don’t see that every day. If he’d had his normal night, A-Rod might have 80 RBI.

Wil Nieves’ batting average jumped up 32 points tonight (.111 to .143) by going 1 for 3.

Abreu went 1 for 4 and did not walk. His average is hovering at .252. We could really use him getting on base at a regular clip in front of A-Rod. Good things happen when A-Rod hits with men on base.

Matsui nearly broke his wrist again trapping a Mark Kotsay liner. Ok, that might be an exaggeration, but the play was identical and I cringed when it happened. Bad memories.

Joe Torre won his 2,010th career game, moving him into 9th place all time.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 5:58 pm and is filed under Bobby Abreu, Game Thread / Recap, Mike Mussina, Kyle Farnsworth, Wil Nieves, George Steinbrenner, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Joe Torre, Alex Rodriguez. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.