Man, I hate the Angels.

Someone on RAB mentioned Girardi should have brought in Rapada instead of Phelps to force Morales to hit from his weaker side when Halos added two tack on run.

Only team I hate is townies.  After that dont like Texas, Mutts and then the Halos.

Hopefully the depleted LAA bullpen will tell.

“You really have to wonder how much worse David Phelps could possibly be as a starter instead of Hughes right now.”

Isn’t that really overstating things? I mean he was terrible yesterday and to start the season but the four starts before the last add up to 25.2 IP, 8 runs, and 6 walks vs 23 Ks. Even adding in the bad starts bookending those his line for the month is perfectly acceptable and for the whole year he has nearly a K per inning along with a K/BB ratio of 4 and a FIP more than a run less than his ERA which has to be a good sign that his Jekyll and Hyde routine will hopefully fade away.

I watched Hughes give up 4 runs in the first and shut the game off.  I wasn’t gonna stay up late to watch him suck/the Yankees lose.  Verdict: good decision.

25.2 IP, 8 runs, and 6 walks vs 23 Ks

Against bad to mediocre offenses, right?

I don’t stay up to watch west coast games anymore. I’ve got 3 preschool kids who are awake at 6AM regardless of a Yankees win or loss, and the pain of losing AND losing sleep isn’t worth the thrill of victory and losing sleep.

That said, I’m REALLY glad I was asleep at 10:30 last night.

I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about the play Arod did not make in the first inning on a hard grounder by Pujols, if he stays with that ball is an inning ending DP, but he did not and the Angels scored 4 runs that inning and the Yanks lost.

I slept less than 4 hours and I am about to start trading, but at least the Yankees will play tonight again and BC is going to be on the mound.

I watched Hughes give up 4 runs in the first and shut the game off.  I wasn’t gonna stay up late to watch him suck/the Yankees lose.  Verdict: good decision.

Likewise. Passing out face down in a pool of my own vomit paid off again.

[7] That was a rocket and Alex was fortunate to twitch a muscle, much less get any glove on it as it went by (which he barely did).

No, this was all on Hughes and his giving up 5 hits to the first 6 batters. He was throwing meatballs and that’s why his strike ratio was so high. Foul balls galore and hits aplenty. I’d call him a has-been, but he never really established himself enough to qualify as “was”.

Phil Hughes is the Facebook of pitchers. Fun to watch every once in a while, making you spend way too much time looking at frustrating crap, and only morons take the opportunity to invest in him.

Edit: And I’m getting really tired of the “Larry Rothchild and His Traveling Band of Flat Mound All-Stars” show.

On a slightly different topic: should Girardi consider playing with the lineup a bit to try to get more mileage out of Granderson’s homers? It occurred to me after his HR last night that he’s hit an inordinate amount of solo shots, and a quick look at his game log proves me right: 12 of his 15 have come with bases empty and the other three were only for 2 runs. I know lineups don’t matter all that much to run scoring, and this is probably just a fluke of timing, but it is pretty frustrating that the team isn’t getting nearly as many runs as you’d expect from it’s HR leader.

I watched Hughes give up 4 runs in the first and shut the game off.  I wasn’t gonna stay up late to watch him suck/the Yankees lose.  Verdict: good decision.

Same.  He was shelled in the first inning.  Even saying “this was all on Hughes and his giving up 5 hits to the first 6 batters” understates things seeing as how that 1 out was made.

Don’t forget vintage Jeter grounding out with the bases loaded to end yet another inning.

[11] Seriously.  Granderson ran that ball down in the gap and caught it just shy of the wall.  I told my wife that’s probably a HR in DNYS.

The Pujols ball… yeah, it could’ve been a DP.  But it was *smoked* and so were the other hits.

Here’s why this is so depressing: Hughes’ velocity was there.  He was at 93-94 mph during all of this.  He started off all FB, but broke out his curve once things got interesting (with Morales up, I think).  And Morales hit an RBI single off of said curveball.  There were, as usual, tons of foul-offs from Hughes’ 93-94mph heater.  He simply does not have swing-and-miss stuff*.  He might survive this if he had excellent command or a nasty sinker.  He has neither.  Therefore, he sucks.

* - I believe this may have something to do with a short stride (and/or inability to hide the ball).  Remember that article about how Robertson has a super-duper awesomely long stride and, therefore, releases the ball closer to the plate such that he gains ~2mph on his pitches from the perspective of the hitter?  Remember who was at other end of the chart, losing ~2mph on his pitches?  His name rhymes with FUSE.  Hence Hughes throws a 94mph fastball and guys get the bat on it.  Robertson throws a 93-94mph fastball right past people.  He does it with 92 mph FBs.

By the way, I was at the Sox-Tigers game yesterday.  I saw the Sox lineup treat Doug Fister the way he ought to be treated (but so often, mysteriously, isn’t) with a great deal of help from hilariously bad (like point and laugh funny) defense from Fielder and Cabrera, I saw Mighty Midget get hurt making a really nice defensive play (he really is a great defensive 2b man), and I saw Pasta/Ace give up a 2-run dinger in the 9th to give the crowd a little “uh-oh” moment to sour their comfortable win.  The ballpark was beautiful.  The weather was beautiful.  The patriotic stuff was mostly bearable, though enduring “God Bless America” made my teeth hurt, as usual.

To be fair to Hughes, A-Rod really whiffed on a sure DP grounder in that horrible first inning.  Yeah it was hit hard.  BUT, in the major leages, filders routinely pick that ball and the inning is over with less damage. 

A-Rod really helped the Angels at the plate too.  Getting sick of watching him get roughly 45K per AB when the ABs are sooo bad.

It was only a sure DP grounder because it was moving at Mach 2.  Not because it was an easy play.  Yes, ARod should have made the play, but he’s not a bad defender (trust me, I saw bad defense yesterday, and it doesn’t look like that).

It’s one thing to excuse a pitcher when he plays in front of a poor defensive ballclub consistently.  But the Yankees really aren’t, and their worst defender is less likely to be a factor when Hughes starts (because of the fly balls).  Instead, we’re reduced to pleading with the Yankee defense to save Phil, rather than just not hurting him.

Pleading is a good way of putting it.  When you have a pitcher out there who desperately needs every potential out put into play, you have to convert those chances.  I shudder to think what would be happening if Nunez was still around…

Name him not!

We can blame members of the offense all we want, but they scored 8 runs.

This is on Hughes.

[19] And Teixeira wasn’t an automatic out.  Now he’s got me guessing.  I’ve written him off, but I fully expected a hot streak or three this season.  And I know Oakland’s staff is basically AAAA and the Angel’s bullpen is mediocre at best - but maybe ... could Mark Teixeria be turning a corner? Could the Yankees get their money’s worth out of him this season still?  The majority of me says no, it’s just bad pitching.  But it would be nice to see something close to a .900+OPS out of him this season.

Did I mention how much I hate Hughes?  I don’t think I did.

FWIW, if Hughes is a high-inconsistency pitcher on the game level, that makes him relatively more valuable.  A guy who has three or four strong games then one stinker (in which he still pitches 5 innings) is pretty valuable.

[22]  I knew you would say that, but you don’t take into account my blood pressure, and that ominously throbbing vein in my temple.

[22] is pretty valuable.

.. and is more valuable than a pitcher who equals that performance with a uniform distribution of value.

If only he could consistently be non-consistent in a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio of good to bad then what you are saying would matter.

Kendtys Morales OPS 211 points higher batting lefty then righty for his career and
340 points higher this year on a small sample so wouldn’t it have made sense for Binder to bring in Rapada last night instead of Phelps to face one batter?  What am I missing?

[25] Wouldn’t that actually be consistently good though?

Kendtys Morales OPS 211 points higher batting lefty then righty for his career and
340 points higher this year on a small sample so wouldn’t it have made sense for Binder to bring in Rapada last night instead of Phelps to face one batter?  What am I missing?

Rapada is a LOOGY in the truest sense, with an over 1.100 OPS against righties for his career. Although Phelps has been no great shakes so far against lefties, I’m sure Girardi felt his stuff would fare better than Rapada’s.

I guess you have to separate the variables but I imagine Morales has faced a few loogies.  Would be interesting to see how he has fared against loogies in the past.

[22] - But that’s not what Hughes has been over any meaningful stretch.  That’s just what he’s been over the last 5 games. If he can consistently repeat this last 5 games most Yankee fans would sign up without complaint.  Isn’t that pretty much what Pettitte was like?  During the post season at least.