Results tagged ‘ Yankee Stadium ’
Brian Cougar Show: Week 2 — Staying on Schedule!
Do not doubt me!
Well, after a 5-1 homestand for the Yankees this week, I think the great Joe Posnanski has the perfect summary of their season after 12 games:
“The Yankees look absurdly good as expected.”
I think that statement is especially true for the starting pitching … outside of Javier Vazquez. CC Sabathia won Friday’s rain-shortened game against the Texas Rangers — which I attended (hooray me) — where he allowed one run and struck out nine over six innings. A.J. Burnett then followed that with seven strikeouts over seven scoreless innings on Saturday; Phil Hughes, in his first start of the 2010 season, was charged for two runs on six hits over five innings on Thursday. Hughes, not surprisingly, was a bit amped up and walked five batters, but the velocity on his fastball looked pretty good, and the only extra-base hit he allowed was the homer to Hideki Matsui. And Andy Pettitte, Andy friggin’ Pettitte, won two starts this week, throwing six scoreless innings during the home opener and then eight innings of two-run ball against Texas yesterday. Pettitte’s stats over three starts:
20 innings pitched, three runs, 15 hits, nine walks and 14 strikeouts for a 1.35 ERA
Now it’s early, and Andy’s an old man (excuse me, crafty veteran), so I’m sure that ERA is going to head near the 3.5-to-4.5 area by the end of the season, but to see Pettitte pitching like this, at his age, after winning his fifth World Series title only a few months ago, well, it’s pretty impressive (I’m aware he’s made piles of money and is making a good chunk of change this year, but his work ethic and the results are impressive).
Vazquez is the only blot (great word) in this rotation. He received a few boo’s and got to see his name in print with the “he can’t pitch in New York” angle already, but, come on now, it’s two starts! I realize he left on a bad note in 2004 and hasn’t really done much (anything) to impress so far in his second go-around, but he’s the friggin’ No. 4 starter. I feel much better watching Javy struggle as opposed to, say, CC or A.J. (Not that I don’t like Javy, it’s just him being slow out of the gate doesn’t really concern me). His velocity did look a bit low in the game on Wednesday, so that’s something to keep an eye on, but I’m giving him two more starts before I get worried. Again, they traded him for Melky Cabrera (The Melk Man!), who’s hitting .119 with a .245 OBP for Atlanta right now.
Highlights: Everything. I even think the vendor accidentally gave me two free beers at the game on Friday (It still hasn’t showed up on my statement. I’m not sure how long that’s supposed to take).
Lowlights: The only lowlight this week (outside of Vazquez) would be Nick Johnson (Mark Teixeira avoids it due to the home run and slick defensive plays yesterday), especially after his three strikeout game to close out the week, however he was able to, for the second time this season, drive in a run via a bases loaded walk earlier this week (OBP .407!) and … AND … he comes up to the plate to “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. I know he’s not the only one doing this (Cameron Maybin of the Marlins is apparently doing it as well), but to walk up to home plate in Yankee Stadium, in front of 50,000 people, with that song playing … well, that’s amazing. Especially since, even though he said it’s his daughter’s favorite song, I’m sure it’s one of his top-five favorite songs of all-time as well (UNPROVABLE CLAIM).
So, a very relaxed week two of the season. Rings were handed out (both real and fake), Godzilla returned (standing ovation!), homes were opened and the Yanks are 9-3, tied with the Tampa Bay Rays at the top of the AL East. The Yanks head out west this week for a battle with the hot-start A’s and a rematch with the Angels. I’m sensing a couple of series wins. And some A-Bombs. Five A-Bombs this week. UNNECESSARY PREDICTION THAT WILL UNDOUBTEDLY COME TRUE.
Joba Joba Joba
Will Joba feed on the monster, or be consumed?
I don’t know what that title is supposed to mean, I just didn’t want to type “Yanks/Red Sox: The rivalry begins…AGAIN!” or some other variation of that. Instead, I wanted nonsense!
The Yankees head to Fenway for the first series of the 2009 season with identical records, two games behind the (still surprising, but they haven’t played an AL East team yet) Toronto Blue Jays. The Yankees send out Joba Chamberlain with the hopes that he can replicate his Fenway start from last year (or just win) and the Red Sox send out Jon Lester, who had a solid outing his last time out after two so-so starts to start his ’09 season. Should be a fun matchup, as it’s a battle of both team’s future aces. Then you have the battle of the former Marlins flame-throwers on Saturday with A.J. Burnett and Josh Beckett, and Pettitte/Masterson, which has no storyline yet, but I’m sure it will by Sunday night.
Shock of all shocks, the Yankees were able to bounce back from Saturday’s debacle to take the finale against Cleveland and then sweep the rain-shortened two-game set vs. the A’s to end the first homestand at the new Yankee Stadium. I was at Tuesday’s game, my second time at the new Stadium (first time in the bleachers) …which will now lead me to a long rant on the new Stadium:
1) The “Oh My God, it’s Coors Field East!” storyline: This has replaced the “Should Joba be a starter/reliever?” storyline as the most obnoxious conversation about the Yankees, and it did so in record fashion (about 24 hours). First, of the home runs hit during the Indians and A’s series, you can count, I think, three as true cheap-shots (Posada’s that the fan caught, Suzuki’s that the fan caught, and I’m sure, maybe one or two other ones). The rest were legit shots, hit by Major League baseball players, off of bad pitches.
Second, this is Yankee Stadium! It’s famous for the short porch! So why are people shocked that homers would be flying out of right field? It’s 314 feet!
Third, they’ve played eight (six regular season, two exhibition) games at the new Stadium. EIGHT! Let’s wait until at least, I don’t know, the All-Star break before freaking out about the amount of home runs.
And finally, do people all of a sudden hate home runs? I know we’re trying to move away from the big-offense, steroid-fueled 90′s, but we’ve gone from “Woooooooah yeah, everyone’s hitting homers, and it’s awesome!” to “Oh No! 25 home runs were hit in the first homestand of the new Yankee Stadium! What are we gonna do?!” I honestly can’t believe how overblown this story is, it’s insanity.
2) The “HAHA, no one’s sitting in the field-level seats, what a joke!” storyline: Everyone knows the Yankees are charging too much for field-level tickets. And everyone knows the country is in the midst of a recession. Therefore, insanely priced tickets remain unsold! Shock of all shocks! Shouldn’t people be, I don’t know, happy about this? Everyone said the Yankees were charging too much for certain seats, and it’s obvious people aren’t paying. Therefore everyone was right. Hooray!
Now, either two things will happen: A) The Yankees will lower ticket prices or B) The Yankees will continue to have empty seats at field level. Option A would be best, as everyone loves attending/watching a game in a packed Stadium, but Option B isn’t some vision of doomsday. Yankee Stadium does not need to be filled to capacity. Fans can continue sitting in the cheaper seats (those remain filled), or choose to watch the games at home. From what I’ve seen on video, people didn’t go to Yankee Stadium much at all in the 80′s, and yet the games still went on as scheduled.
There just seems to be this bizarre need for people to have immediate and extreme reactions to the new Yankee Stadium (and Citi Field, too). I personally think both are upgrades from the old stadium’s, but it’s going to take more than a week for them to feel like home. A trip to October would help.
New Yankee Stadium
Well, before I get into my predictions for the 2009 lineup, I must first give my thoughts on the new Yankee Stadium after attending Friday night’s game vs. the Cubs.
I’m still shocked they were able to even play the game (Although the field seemed to drain just as advertised, as that field looked game-ready just a few minutes after the tarp was removed). All day I was staring out the window, noticing the rain stopped for five minutes and convincing myself the game was on, then it would start pouring and the game was back off, and then, finally, after reading on yankees.com that they were opening the gates on time no matter what, heading out to the Stadium, game or no game, for the chance to finally see the Stadium myself. I mean, my ticket cost $1.30. While I was excited to see the Yankees play, the main attraction Friday night was the Stadium, and it did not disappoint!
First, unless you are one of those people who are against the new Stadium on principle (Which is a perfectly acceptable point of view. The Yankees did not NEED a new Stadium. I mean, ticket sales were fine, the whole “Ruth/Gherig/Dimaggio/Mattingly/Sojo played on this field! reason ((Again, I guess I understand this point, but, hell, if you can’t knock down Yankee Stadium because Babe Ruth played there, well, he played in a ton of parks during his life. Was there rage when Braves Field was knocked down? I know that’s stretching the point big time, but how many games does Ruth have to play in a place before it’s deemed unknockdownable (((made up word)))?) Anyway, as you can tell, while I loved the old Stadium and would have probably had no issues with the Yankees playing there for another 80 years, I had no problem with the building of a new Stadium and was extremely excited to see it for the first time.
My verdict: Fan-tabulous!
It honestly looks like someone just took the old Stadium and improved everything about it. Nothing seemed gratituous, it didn’t look like they were enhancing things just for to show off that it’s new. For some reason I really like the navy blue on the seats and the outfield wall. It’s a lot sharper than that lighter blue at the old Stadium, and really gives it more of a classic look. The Great Hall is, well, great. There’s tons of classic photos everywhere, with all the World Series teams over the concession stands throughout the Stadium. The manual score boards is a minor change but, like the navy blue, gives it a more classic feel. On the other hand the gigantic screen gives it a much more modern look, and the picture quality is ridiculous.
I was in the last row of the grand stand on the third base side of the field and, outside of a small corner in right field, the sight lines were great. I could even turn around and look at the old Stadium across the street, which was a bit weird at first. Later in the game (after the great Mariano Rivera’s appearance) I went down to the area between the two bleacher sections, on top of the Hard Rock in center field, and, while I still would probably not by a standing room ticket myself, that area seems like it will be an awesome place to hang out during games if you want to leave your seats for a while. It also had the best view of the frieze stretching around the grand stand. Again, there was nothing that seemed out of place or unecessarily overdone. Just a great job. The game was fun, too.
briancougar
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