Posts tagged MikeMussina at FanHouse

After all that Mike Mussina has accomplished -- he's been to the All-Star game five times, won six Gold Gloves, ranks 19th all-time in strikeouts and 33rd all-time in wins -- one measley win in an absolutely meaningless regular season game shouldn't really matter. But it does.

By pitching six shutout innings agains the Red Sox yesterday afternoon, Mussina won 20 games in a season for the first time in his 18-year career. At 39, he became the oldest player in major league history to accomplish the feat. Although he hasn't officially made up his mind if he wants to try breaking his own record by doing it again at 40, he certainly sounded like a guy ready to hang them up. From the New York Times:

"I've been envious of every guy who's retired since I've been playing - you've done what you wanted to do, and I still have to grind it out, that kind of thing," Mussina said, enjoying a soda in the manager's office between games of a doubleheader. "You get to go home and relax, and you've played the game as long as you've chosen to play it. I've felt good for every one of them."

The final week of the 2008 season has been one long requiem for all things Yankee. On Sunday, Yankee Stadium closed it doors after 85 years. Two days later, the second longest string of postseason appearances was officially snapped. The eulogies have been written, but the game presses on.

Five days from now, the Yankees will finish their final game of the season at Fenway Park and they hurtle headlong into an offseason of transition the likes of which hasn't been seen in the Bronx in more than a decade. Moving across the street might be one of the smaller changes.

It's clear that the Yankees have fallen a step behind their hated rivals to the north. But they've also fallen behind the Rays and the Blue Jays and Orioles are improving rapidly. A massive payroll just isn't good enough on its own anymore.

That's a lesson the Red Sox learned back in 2006. Boston wilted down the stretch under the weight of injuries to Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez and Coco Crisp and a woeful pitching staff and ended up winning a disappointing 86 games. That Red Sox team let Mark Loretta, Alex Gonzalez and Trot Nixon walk and replaced them with a prospect named Dustin Pedroia and free agents Julio Lugo and J.D. Drew.

This Yankees team never really got going because of significant injuries to Jorge Posada and Chien-Ming Wang and a patchwork pitching staff. It will probably wind up with a win total in the high 80s. It will let Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi walk this winter, and possibly Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina as well.

So what now? Given all the similarities, can the Yankees get back to the playoffs and beyond in 2009 as the Red Sox did last year?

It wouldn't be the dog days of summer without a good old fashioned panic attack in the Northeast, where baseball fans live and die with the outcome of each night's game. In almost perfect symmetry, the Red Sox, Yankees and Mets all got bad news on the injury front Wednesday.

Considering where the big three sit in the standings, fans in New York and Boston have plenty to be concerned about. Let's look at each team's situation and try to assess how bad things are right now and how bleak they could get.

Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz has already missed almost two months this season with a torn tendon sheath in his wrist. Now the slugger is reporting that he's hearing a "clicking" sound in the wrist he injured back on May 31 in Baltimore. The good news for Boston fans is that, on its own, the clicking sound isn't a concern. Indeed, Ortiz was back in the lineup for Wednesday night's game against the Royals.

However, as injury guru Will Carroll points out, the problem could be more mental than anything. If Ortiz's swing gets less violent and vicious because he is afraid of getting injured, it could hurt his productivity -- a frightening proposition for Boston in the wake of the Manny Ramirez trade.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Oakland Athletics (53-55) at Boston Red Sox (62-48)- 7:05 PM EST
As debuts go, making two nice catches and scoring both of your new teams' runs in a 2-1 win that helped end a slide of 5 losses in six games is a pretty nice way to start off a career with a new team. That's exactly what Jason Bay did last night with the Red Sox. The thing is, anyone that follows the Red Sox can tell you that it's going to take a whole lot more than that from the guy that's replacing Manny Ramirez in the lineup.

Tonight, he gets his second start in left field at Fenway while the Red Sox try to stave off the Yankees (who they're 2.5 games up on) and/or catch the Rays (who they're three) games behind. Whatever happens to the Red Sox down the stretch, Bay's going to play a huge part in it.

While the All Star teams won't be announced until later tonight, we have a pretty good idea who most of the starters will be thanks to the fan voting. What we usually have to wait a bit to find out about, though, is who the starting pitchers will be in the game. That won't be the case this season, as word has leaked out that this years starting pitchers will be Cleveland's Cliff Lee and Arizona's Brandon Webb.

Cliff Lee, who had to fight for a job in Cleveland's rotation this spring, will be the starting pitcher for the AL, the Post reported. Lee is 11-1 with a 2.26 ERA.

He'll go against Arizona's Brandon Webb, who will be playing in his third consecutive All-Star game and getting his first starting assignment.

It's pretty hard to argue against either selection, as Cliff Lee has been one of the lone bright spots for the Indians this season, and Brandon Webb is, well, Brandon Webb.

In the American League, Terry Francona probably could have picked either Lee, Joe Saunders, Mike Mussina, Roy Halladay, and Gavin Floyd without getting too much flak for it. Other candidates in the National League included Aaron Cook, Ben Sheets, Edinson Volquez, and Tim Lincecum, but it looks like Webb's reputation preceded him.

I'm sure this is the way Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman drew it up coming into the season. The last turn through the Yankees rotation went like this: Mike Mussina, Dan Giese, Andy Pettitte, Darrell Rasner, and Joba Chamberlain.

Ok, so Mussina and Pettitte: check. Joba? Wasn't he supposed to be setting up? Instead Yanks fans get treated to a rousing rendition of Kyle Farnsworth in the 8th ... woo hoo! Rasner was an uninspiring injury replacement last year, and who the heck is Dan Giese? Sidney Ponson is next to the party. You remember him, right? He's the fat dude pictured here who got kicked off the Rangers for being a royal pain in the arse and enjoys driving after a few pops.

Injuries got them here.

The major issue is Chien Ming-Wang's foot injury -- because the NL hasn't grown up.

Ian Kennedy is on his way back from injury and threw impressively -- seven K in three shutout innings -- in a rehab start last Monday.

Finally, Carl Pavano is apparently closer to a MLB return than Phil Hughes.

Whaddaya say we fantasy spin it up for each dude after the jump ...

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

New York Yankees (39-33) vs. San Diego Padres (31-42) - 1:05PM Est.

When Hank Steinbrenner came out earlier this season and basically demanded that Joba Chamberlain stopped being used out of the bullpen, and placed into the starting rotation, his general manager and manager kind of just ignored him. Hank was just doing anything in his power to try to be like his dad, and after dealing with George for all those years, Brian Cashman had become pretty adept at tuning his boss out.

Besides, the Yankees starters were just off to a rough start to the 2008 season, and things would turn around soon enough. Only they never did, as Phil Hughes struggled, Ian Kennedy got sent down, and Mike Mussina looked like a shell of a shell of his former self. So eventually Cashman and Joe Girardi had to cave, and move Joba into the starting rotation (and now that Chien-Ming Wang is out they're lucky they did).

His first start didn't go very well, but in the two starts since, Joba has improved each time out. This afternoon he'll be making his fourth start of the season, but will he finally pick up his first victory as a starter?

When Joe Girardi took over the wheel of the Good Ship Yankee, one of his first moves was banning ice cream and other sweets from the clubhouse. One of the players who took that hardest was Mike Mussina. Over his long career, the Moose had grown accustomed to a pregame crossword puzzle, a Klondike bar and just missing 20 wins in a season so we were curious to see how the change affected him on the mound.

The early reports weren't so encouraging but things have gotten a lot better. Mussina is tied for the AL lead in wins with 10 and has been a steadying influence in a rotation that's really needed one. The Yankees returned home for the first time since Moose's 10th win and found a special treat waiting for them. Thanks to the 10th win and a bet Mussina made with Girardi, the ice cream was back.

"It took me till September last year," Mussina said. "They must have thought this was a lock-solid bet."

I don't know, I might not fix what wasn't broken. Mussina was awful in 2007 and there was a lot of talk about how improved conditioning was his focus coming into this season. The results have been terrific thus far so why risk a return to the sugar-addled pitching that got him dropped from the rotation last summer?

Last year, John Feinstein followed two veteran New York starting pitchers around for his new book Living on the Black. The year didn't end well for either Tom Glavine or Mike Mussina, which should make it an interesting read. Some excerpts shared by Ken Davidoff of Newsday make it clear that it's a humorous one as well.

Before the 2007 season, Mussina spoke openly about the frustration he felt about Carl Pavano's continual unavailability because of injury and the lack of respect that he had from his teammates as a result. Davidoff relates seeing the two men having a conversation but never knew the content until Feinstein's book enlightened him.

"Were you quoted accurately in the papers today?" Pavano asked Mussina.

"Absolutely," Mussina responded.

Mussina shouldn't be too hard on Pavano. After all, he's a wealthier man today because of Pavano's failure to make good on his four-year, $39.95 million contract. When he sat down with Brian Cashman to negotiate a new contract following the 2006 season, Mussina was presented with a two-year, $18 million offer.

"Brian, you're not paying me less than you're paying Carl Pavano," Mussina responded. "Don't insult me." Mussina wound up re-signing for two years and $23 million.

Cashman better hope his kids don't read that before trying hammer out an agreement about allowance. "Well, Jimmy, you didn't clean your room every day last week, were rude to your mother and forgot to walk the dog."

"You signed Carl Pavano for $39.95 million."

"Here's your money."

On April 18th, on these very pages, I wrote a post asking if the Moose was cooked. Forgive me my terrible pun but don't forgive me my premature attempt to write the final chapter of Mike Mussina's career. Mussina has been quite good the last two months and may be the one player most responsible for the Yankees not being totally in the toilet.

Wicked Good Sports has also noticed Mussina's torrid pitching of late and raises the question of the Midsummer Classic at Yankee Stadium. Could the Moose get the nod in front of the home crowd?

In his first four starts of the season, Mussina was 1-3 with a 5.75 ERA, 3.1 K/9 and 5 home runs allowed. In his last 10 starts, he's 8-1 with a 3.11 ERA, 5.7 K/9 and 5 home runs allowed. Is there a hotter pitcher in the American League right now? No. Is there an American League pitcher who deserves to start ahead of him in the All-Star Game? Probably not.

There's a pretty big caveat about Mussina's strong stats. His one poor start of late came on May 20th against the Orioles when a Derek Jeter error opened the floodgates for a seven run inning. Only one was earned but Mussina deserves some of the blame for walking in a run and then allowing three straight run-scoring hits. That's had a huge effect on those stats and a big reason why Mussina isn't the most deserving All-Star starter.