Results tagged “barryzito”

It may have taken a few extra hours, but the Mets finally got their man. The Mets and Johan Santana agreed to a six-year, $137.5 million contract, with a club option for a seventh year. When the Mets and Twins agreed to the trade on Tuesday, Major League Baseball gave the Mets and Santana until 5 p.m. Friday to reach a deal. With the deadline approaching yesterday, but no agreement reached, the two sides asked for, and were given, a two-hour extension. What's a couple of hours when you're working out the richest contract for a pitcher in baseball history? All that's left now is a physical for the players involved in the trade. Santana will take his today.

The big sports news of the day isn't the Super Bowl. It's the probable Johan Santana trade that the Mets and Twins agreed to yesterday. And from the reaction of the local papers and sportswriters, it seems like the Mets pulled a fast one on the rubes from Minnesota. If the Mets can sign Santana to a contract extension, it's likely that he will become the highest paid pitcher in baseball, surpassing Barry Zito of the San Francisco Giants. It's believed that Santana and his agent Peter Greenberg are looking for a 6 or 7-year deal in the range of $20-25 million per year.

Tom Glavine signed a $10.5 million one-year deal with the Mets, making it likely he will retire as a Met. Glavine had been debating whether to stay with the Mets or go back to Atlanta, where his family lives, and pitch for the Braves.

Joe Torre opened his press conference this afternoon by saying that he had “just gotten off the phone with George Steinbrenner and he has informed me that I will be the manager in 2007.” So closes one of the more bizarre 48 hours in Yankees’ history. First we heard Joe was gone, then he was coming back, and then no decision had been reached. (And somewhere in there, Giuliani called Steinbrenner to save Torre's job.) Now we know, Torre is returning.

In what has to be considered a huge upset, the Tigers defeated the Yankees 8-3 Saturday to advance to the ALCS. New York’s vaunted offense was putrid, getting only six hits and simply looking overmatched. Detroit will face Oakland starting Tuesday in a matchup of two teams with great pitching.

Pedro Martinez was thought to be out for only the playoffs when it was annoucned that he had a torn tendon in his left calf. Now it's being that the soon to be 35 year-old Mets righty will be out for 8 months because of rotator cuff surgery. Assuming Pedro has a speedy recovery, which is a big assumption, he would be back in June. The injury was detected the same day physicians discovered the injury in Martinez's left calf. A second opinion requested by Martinez confirmed the initial test. Omar Minaya told the Associated Press that Pedro was "absolutely not" considering retirement.

The Yankees salvaged their weekend with a 9-3 victory over the Twins Sunday. Four home runs, two by Jason Giambi and one each from Robinson Cano and A-Rod powered New York. Chien-Ming Wang had his finest outing of the season, pitching seven strong innings for the win.

The Yankees opened the 2006 season in grand fashion, getting 17 hits, 9 walks and scoring 15 runs in their 13-run victory over the A’s. Alex Rodriguez hit a grand slam off of one of the biggest meatball pitches A’s ace, Barry Zito, has ever thrown and Hideki Matsui added a two-run homer. Johnny Damon went 3-7 in his Yankee debut and every starter had a hit except for Jorge Posada.

Kevin Brown struck out seven and allowed only four hits over the 8 innings. Barry Zito got into trouble in the second inning and that lead to 3 runs. It wasn't entirely Zito's fault as Alex Rodriguez reached base on left fielder Eric Byrnes error. Jorge Posada flied out to center for the first out of the inning. Then Hideki Matsui singled to right, A-rod to second. Ruben Sierra then doubled to left field and A-rod scored moving Matsui to third. Newly acquired John Olerud then doubled to deep left scoring Matsui and Sierra.

In the bottom of the ninth with one runner on and one out, Gary Sheffield (hands down the Yankee MVP) launched an Octavio Dotel pitch into the Left field seats tying the game 6-6. In the Bottom of the 11th it was A-Rod's turn to play hero, hitting, what looked like a lazy fly ball to left field, that carried over the left field wall. The home run may be viewed as the moment that A-Rod officially became a Yankee. He had been mired in a slump this entire season with runners in scoring position, but last night that all changed with his walk-off home run.

Getting four runs off Mulder is like getting a date with Carmen Electra, it just doesn't happen that often. The Yankees pitching continues to be a problem. The offense has been consistent all year, but the pitching is another story. The Yankees are not worried about losing a few games in the regular season to the Oakland A's, but the signs are there for a mediocre off-season, due to the poor pitching. In the playoffs you win games 3-2 or 2-1, not 10-9. That is what concerns the Yankee fan, what is going to happen in October when we match up aagainst three top notch pitchers.

It's a no brainer, but Gothamist thinks that with the slump over, Derek Jeter will return to his normal ways. His average will steadily climb the rest of the season from .161 towards his career mark of .315. Fantasy players, if you can trade for Jeter, do it now.

After the game, Kidd said, "With all the talk throughout the year that they were going to catch us, that they were a better team, they wanted to play us in the playoffs; like I said, sometimes it's fools gold. Sometimes you wish for something that you wanted but in reality you don't want it. They got what they needed." The Nets will play the winner of the Milwaukee-Detroit as the Knicks go home to watch the rest of the playoffs on TV. Perhaps they will go home and talk about how they were robbed and how they were actually the better team and will wage-war against the Nets next year.