Results tagged “thetwins”

For those of you who thought the low-point of the 2005 Yankee season was losing three out of four games to the Devil Rays, guess again. The Kansas City Royals, winners of only 26 percent of their games before this series, completed a three game sweep of the Yankees Thursday night with a 5-2 victory. For the series, the Yankees managed to score a total of six runs against a pitching staff with an ERA of 5.44.

Johan Santana, who has not lost since the All-Star break, gave up nine hits in seven innings, but had plenty of defense behind him. Three of the double plays were your "standard" GIDP, one was a strike em out, throw em out, and another came on a fly ball to center with a play at the plate. Squandered opportunities by the Yankees as they left seven on base; the Twins only left four runners on base. Mike Mussina picked up his fourth loss in his fourth game one start, leading Gothamist to wonder why they bother starting him in game one of any series - oh, right, he's their best pitcher. While Mussina only allowed seven hits, the Twins were able to score with some small ball in the 3rd and a home run by Jacque Jones in the 6th inning.

Seems like the issue for the Yankees is their starting pitching. Mike Mussina and Jon Lieber are the probable starters for games one and two, but the other two starters remains a question until the Yankees officially file their post season roster and Joe Torre makes a decision on Orlando Hernandez's status. The NY Times reports that Jason Giambi will be left off the post-season roster and Javier Vazquez will pitch in long relief. Torre has yet to make an announcement as to who he will pitch in game three, but Brian Cashman says the Yankees are going to have 11 pitchers on the post-season roster. As they say, pitching wins the post-season. The Twins will start Johan Santana, a solid candidate for the Cy Young award, in game one followed by Brad Radke in game two. MLB.com is reporting that Hernandez is the tentative starter for game three, which considering his performance in recent outings is rather surprising. In his past two starts, both against Toronto, Hernandez has given up 10 total runs in 9.1 innings of total work. His surgically repaired shoulder has been acting up, but the Yankees may not have anywhere else to turn. Then again, the Yankees have had poor pitching all year and they've managed to win 100+ games.

In game one, Mike Mussina gave up three runs in the first inning and the Yankees managed only one run and three hits off Johan Santana. Lucky for the Yankees, the Twins have already clinched. Santana was pulled after five innings to rest for the playoffs which begin next week. After Santana left, the Yankees were free to have their way with them - okay, not really, but they notched four runs in the 7th inning and went on to win 5-3 (box score).

In Tuesday's game, Javier Vasquez took the mound against Brad Radke. Vasquez once again disappointed. He must be the most disappointing 13 game winner in the history of baseball. Gothamist can't remember ever watching him pitch a game and thinking to ourselves that he was unhittable. He racks up cheap wins and has an E.R.A of over 4 runs. When he was in Montreal, he once one of baseball's best kept secrets. Now in the Bronx, he can't seem to get it together. Now don't get us wrong, if there are two foxholes and Jeff Weaver is manning one and Vasquez the other, Gothamist is diving in with Vasquez. Vasquez, though has done little to impress Yankee fans.