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Archive for the 'New York Yankees' Tag

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A tale of two overworked scoreboards at Fenway Park

August 22nd, 2009, 7:00 pm by Earl Bloom, staff writer

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This is what is known as contrast.

The Fenway Park scenes Saturday (above, as a dejected Robinson Cano and New York absorb a 14-1 loss to Boston) and Friday (below, as Eric Hinske, Melky Cabrera and Nick Swisher savor a 20-11 Yankees triumph over the Red Sox) could not have been more different.

A.J. Burnett was worse Saturday than Brad Penny on Friday, if that’s possible.

The Red Sox are leading, 25-21 on aggregate, as they say in soccer, going into Sunday’s game.

I can’t believe I resisted the cliche, what a difference a day makes. Oops.

Yankees Red Sox Baseball

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Aaron Boone battles back into baseball, eyes big leagues

August 12th, 2009, 6:05 am by Earl Bloom, staff writer

YouTube Preview Image

Aaron Boone was where he wants to be Monday, back on a baseball field.

In less than three weeks, he hopes to Astros Braves Spring Baseballbe back in the major leagues wearing a Houston Astros uniform.

Boone, 36, an 11-year veteran, underwent open-heart surgery on March 26 to repair a congenital defect in his aortic valve. At the time, he was uncertain if he would return to the game.

The former Villa Park HS and USC star started a 20-day injury rehab stint Monday with Double-A Corpus Christi. He played third base and went 0 for 2.

Boone is scheduled to play again Wednesday. Eventually, he will attempt back-to-back games — he said building up strength to do that is his biggest concern.

His biggest moment in baseball was his serie-deciding, 11th-inning  homer for the New York Yankees in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS (see video above).

The Astros will be Boone’s sixth major-league team. He broke in with the Reds in 1997, went to the Yankees in 2003, then sat out a year because of a knee injury suffered playing basketball. He played two seasons with Cleveland, then a season apiece with Florida and Washington.

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The Big Lie at Yankee Stadium: Sellouts with empty seats

August 10th, 2009, 7:35 am by Earl Bloom, staff writer

Q. When is a sellout not a sellout?Yankee Stadium Baseball

A. When it’s at the new Yankee Stadium.

What else to expect from a wacky sports world that gives us a Big Ten Conference that has 11 teams? No Northwestern jokes, please.

With all the shouting on TV about “the sellout crowds” that watched the resurgent Yankees punish the Red Sox with a four-game sweep at Yankee Stadium, you’d think the $1.5 billion ediface with the overpriced seats was finally full.

Not true. The house that NYC  taxpayers built, on Jerome Ave. at 161 Street in the Bronx, has a seating capacity of 51,800 (it’s 52,325 for SRO).

The crowds in the Red Sox series, per the boxscores on the ESPN site? Thursday night, 49,005 (93.8 percent capacity); Friday night, 48,262 (92.4 percent); Saturday afternoon, 48,796 (93.4 percent) and Sunday night, 48,190 (92.3 percent).

Those are great crowds, but they are not sellouts. The last 7-8 percent seats in new Yankee Stadium must be horrible, or over-priced, or both.

Which means, if you are one of those who didn’t believe what David Ortiz said Saturday about not using steroids, he wasn’t the only liar at Yankee Stadium last weekend.

Posted in: Uncategorized • • • • | 4 Comments »

Angels reach the century mark

September 28th, 2008, 3:09 pm by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

The Angels completed the most successful regular season in franchise history with a 7-0 victory over the Texas Rangers Sunday afternoon.

The victory was the Angels’ 100th of the season. Before this season, they had never won 100 games in a season or finished with the best record in baseball. They did both in 2008.

The 29th sellout crowd of the season was on its feet for the final out as Scot Shields struck out the side in the ninth inning.  The winningest team in Angels history then left the field to a standing ovation.

The Angels are the first major-league team to win 100 games in a season since the 2005 Cardinals and the first American League team to do it since the 2004 Yankees.

(On a down note — neither the 2005 Cardinals nor the 2004 Yankees reached the World Series. They both lost in the championship-series round.)

After watching their first two playoff starters (John Lackey and Ervin Santana) get roughed up by the Rangers in their final regular-season starts, the Angels got a shutout performance by Joe Saunders in his first start in 10 days (due to a troublesome kidney stone).

Saunders allowed just two hits in six shutout innings and finishes the season with a string of 15 consecutive scoreless innings. Relievers Jose Arredondo, Darren Oliver and Shields each took an inning of work to sharpen up for the playoffs and completed the shutout, retiring nine of the final 10 batters (five on strikeouts).

Mike Napoli led the offense with two doubles and a home run, driving in four runs.

Posted in: Angels • • • • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Moseley will start for Angels Saturday

September 18th, 2008, 1:12 pm by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

When the Angels decided to give John Lackey (nine days) and Ervin Santana (seven days) some downtime and re-align their starting rotation for the playoffs, it created the necessity for a spot start down the stretch. Dustin Moseley will make that start on Saturday in Texas.

It is the third start this month for Moseley who had mixed results in the first two. He was awful in Chicago, lasting just 1 1/3 innings while allowing four runs. He seemed to be headed in that same direction when he gave up two runs in the first inning of his next start, Sept. 10 against the Yankees. But he settled down and allowed no more in a five-inning stint.

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ESPN baseball experts have some catching-up to do

September 11th, 2008, 9:27 am by Al Balderas, staff writer

When the talking heads at ESPN have some tough baseball questions that need answering, you can usually find them turning to Peter Gammons, Jayson Stark or Buster Olney.

After all, these guys are pretty knowledgeable when it comes to the sport.

Or are they?
Taking a look back at ESPN’s predictions for the 2008 season, it appears that Gammons is one of the few big-name analysts who had a clue.

Stark picked the Boston Red Sox to win the AL East. He had the Tigers tabbed as the AL Central champion and, get this, the Seattle Mariners were supposed to win the west.

I took a glance at this morning’s MLB standings and the Mariners were 30 1/2 games behind the Angels.

That number could be closer to 35 by the time the weekend is over.

Olney wasn’t much better with his selections. On second thought, he was worse.

His AL West champion was also Seattle. He had the Indians winning the Central and the Yankees winning the East.

The last I saw of the Yankees, they were limping out of Angel Stadium, facing an elimination number of seven, and heading back to New York for their final homestand at Yankee Stadium.

Neither Stark nor Olney had the Angels making the playoffs at all. Stark’s wild-card pick was the Indians while Olney picked Boston.

Sportingnews.com, gives fans a chance to make their predictions and a person named sportsfan1997 had it pretty close to perfect. While the other divisions still have scrambling to do, sportsfan1997’s picks included the Angels winning the west, Tampa Bay the East, and the Twins and White Sox grabbing the final two playoff spots.

Sportsfan1997’s pick to win the World Series? The Angels.

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And now — Angels wait

September 10th, 2008, 4:25 pm by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

The Angels cut their magic number in half with a 4-2 victory over the New York Yankees Wednesday afternoon. Their closest pursuer in the A.L. West — the Texas Rangers — started their game against the Seattle Mariners an hour later and were just in the sixth inning as the Angels-Yankees game ended.

So fans in attendance were invited to stick around and watch the Rangers-Mariners game on the scoreboard video screen.  Maybe a couple thousand appear to have taken advantage of the offer and are cheering the Mariners on from behind the home dugout.

Meanwhile, the Angels’ clubhouse was opened briefly to the media but we found most of the team huddled together on the couches in the middle of the room watching the Rangers-Mariners on the TVs there.

Tomorrow’s starter, Jered Weaver, was loudly cheering for the Rangers — even though a Rangers victory would extend the Angels’ wait.

Maybe Weaver just wants to take the mound tomorrow with something at stake. But he told one team official who asked about his Rangers’ allegiance that he was relying on “reverse psychology” to kick in and produce the clinching victory.

After less than 15 minutes, the media was cleared out of the clubhouse to wait for the Rangers-Mariners final score.

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Hunter, Ludacris have a winner

September 10th, 2008, 2:14 pm by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

Angels outfielder Torii Hunter had a special guest with him before today’s game — rapper/actor Ludacris.

After the two taped some interviews together, Hunter gave Ludacris a tour of the stadium including the Angels’ clubhouse, introducing him to several teammates.

The two teamed up on a contest at the music web site www.wemix.com that gave aspiring musicians a chance to record an original song that Hunter will use as his ‘walk-up music when going to bat at Angel Stadium.

Here’s the original story on how that came together.

After sifting through over 4,000 entries, Hunter and Ludacris picked a winner — “Luv of Da Game” by Ripchord and Tazuh.

The winning song was going to debut during Hunter’s at-bats Wednesday — but he began serving a two-game suspension for his part in Monday’s benches-clearing ’shove-fest’ with the Yankees.

“Now it’ll be Friday or Saturday — whenever I get back on the field,” Hunter said. “I sure messed that one up.”

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Teixeira, Figgins not in today’s lineup

September 10th, 2008, 12:40 pm by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

Already missing Torii Hunter to a combined suspension-quad injury, the Angels are also without first baseman Mark Teixeira and third baseman Chone Figgins for the series finale against the Yankees.

Figgins was out of the lineup Tuesday as well after getting hit in the right elbow by a pitch Monday. X-rays were negative but Figgins’ elbow remains sore and he is having difficulty flexing it without pain.

“Figgy’s elbow is still to the point where he couldn’t throw and it affects his swing,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “We’re just going to let this heal up and give him a cou,ple days.”

Teixeira, meanwhile, is taking antibiotics for an infection that flared up Tuesday.

“I started running a fever last night,” he said. “They just wanted to make sure it didn’t get worse.”

Teixeira said the issue was not serious and he expects to be back in the lineup on Thursday when the Angels open a four-game series against the Seattle Mariners.

“If this was the playoffs, I’d be out there, no doubt,” he said. “But there’s no reason to risk it getting worse and me being out for an extended time.”

Posted in: Angels • Mike Scioscia • • • | 1 Comment »

Hunter, Pudge suspended two games each

September 10th, 2008, 11:56 am by BILL PLUNKETT, OCREGISTER.COM

Angels outfielder Torii Hunter and Yankees catcher Torii Hunter were each suspended two games for ”violent and inappropriate actions” during Monday’s benches-clearing incident.torii-shove.jpg

Angels pitcher John Lackey was also given an undisclosed fine. Lackey was among the most aggressive (and visible) players leaving the bench to join the scrum at home plate that followed Hunter’s two-handed shove to Rodriguez’s back.

“I figured it’d be one game but two or three? I didn’t expect that,” Hunter said. “I thought about appealing — but why?

“You do the crime, you gotta do the time. I always tell people not to promote violence so I have to take responsibility. But I don’t need anger-management or anything. This is just me being competitive. I apologize for my actions. But this is just sports.”

Hunter would not have been in the lineup Wednesday anyway after feeling tightness in his left quadriceps muscle during Tuesday’s game. Hunter came out of the game after five innings. Considering the Angels’ lead in the A.L. West, Hunter would probably have been given a few days off now regardless of the suspension.

“I woke up this morning and it was good. If I had to go, I could go,” Hunter said. “I understand we’ve got the playoffs and we gotta be careful. I know last year they had all those guys hurt. I read about it. I don’t want to be that guy trying to battle it out.”

Suspended players are not allowed to be in the clubhouse or on the dugout while serving their suspensions. So Hunter joked about watching the game from another location and then returning to join the celebration if the Angels clinch the division this afternoon.

“I’ll probably go to Hooters,” he said. “I’ll be back. Smelling like wings. But I’ll come back.”

Posted in: Angels • • • | 1 Comment »

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