Chien-Ming Wang pitches a great complete game. Gives the bullpen a days off, and shows that he is back to form. 104 pitches 9 IP 5 H 1 R 1 ER 4 SO 43 straight innings w/o giving up a HR
Great game by Wang, magnificent. Wang bailed out Torre tonight for the way Joe used the pen last night...Thanks Wang.
Very good game. Nice to see Abreu's homer. The entire team looked much more alive tonight. Wang was fantastic tonight. Good to see that. VERY disturbing to see it's the first complete game since last August, and the first complete game win since last July. You have to believe the pen is wondering if the game is over yet or not. Now let's keep this going. There's a lot of baseball left to be played. Oakland with a 1-0 lead in the 4th. Go A's!
I'm liking this with Melky in CF and Cairo at 1st. Damon is hitting again as DH,Abreu is coming around and Giambi is away from the ball park.
Alio...We should be at the point where the Yanks fans don't even LOOK at Boston. They don't see eachother until August? The main worry now is getting back to .500...Boston should be the FURTHEST thing in our minds, considering the lead they have as well.
Why? I want to see the Indians, Red Sox, Tigers, White Sox, Twins, Angels, and Oakland lose, in that order, whenever possible. I don't care when we face any of them, they're all in front of us. Every time one of them loses, and we win, we inch closer to October. Of course we want to get back to .500, but I'm always looking at the bigger picture. We still need other teams to lose as we win, otherwise, we can win every day, and still be on the outside looking in.
I don't have a problem with what roger said. While I don't see Clippard being the ace, with Wang and Huges in front of him, he's going to be a hellluva #3 for a long time. Looks like you're being more standoffish than I'm trying to be right now. I can understand. Let's just keep winning games, let the rest just fall into place.
The Wild Card race really adds zing to the baseball season. Otherwise, Alio you are right, you would never care what other baseball teams other than Boston were doing.
Wang has been jekyll and hyde this year. He was great last night and obviously our pen needed the night off. Abreu continues his resurgence and I am now confident the Abreu we saw last year is back which means alot to this lineup. I'd prefer not to see us get 4 guys thrown out on the basepaths though. Jorge had an awful night on the basepaths and ARod should know better than to watch a potential HR even though he did look safe at 2B. Today is big, it would be really nice to take this 4 game series then as long as we take 2 of 3 this weekend it will be a 5-2 week.
Okay, any of the Wild Card teams I understand...But with Boston's lead, and the fact they don't play the Yanks until August, they're blanked out of my mind and the focus is simply .500 and the WILD CARD teams ahead of us... On T-Clip...I hope he can be a 3, but his control has to improve vastly. But let's not go as far to say he can be a Chien-Ming Wang type...
Here's the thing. If Boston doesn't lose a bunch of games soon, it doesn't matter how many we win along the line. If they fall off and we gain 5 or 6 games before the break, and continue to be on a tear for the second half, we have a shot at the division. If Boston keeps winning, we have no shot at the division, which I still want to compete for. Why have a loser's mentality? We're 10.5 back right now. We were, what, 13 back coming into the week? If Boston continues to slide, while we win, being 8 out by the All-Star break is far from unthinkable. We still have 6 head-to-head games left too. -------------- Clippard is not Wang, and never will be. He is not potential ace material, and can't be. Your ace needs a quality fastball, and at least one really good other pitch. Clippard is my idea of a prototypical #3 in this rotation. With Wang forcing a ton of grounders one day, then Hughes simply blowing away guys the next day, Clippard's off-speed stuff is going to be unfairly hard to hit. As I explained the other day, you're concerning yourself with the wrong thing with him. Your perception of his lack of control is off. His fastball is a meatball, so he can't rely on it. He has to throw mostly off-speed stuff to be successful. The problem with off-speed stuff, when it's your primary pitch, is that batters are waiting on it. You throw it over the middle, and it's basically a hand delivered home run. So he has to paint the corners. Obviously, if you're playing for the outside pitch, you're going to miss more often than a guy trying to throw low speed over the middle. The whole key to Clippard is his "nastiness" on his breaking stuff. If it breaks hard, even just off the outside of the plate, it's going to have guys swinging at it. You could argue that guys will just lay off, and let him beat himself, but then you just set up his mediocre fastball to be successful. Like I've said before, I'll always take a guy who throws quality breaking stuff over a guy who throws a 95MPH fastball, but has nothing else to rely on. That's why I was so keen on Zito in the offseason. If you've got a couple hurlers, like we do (will when Hughes returns) coupled with a guy like Clippard, you make Clippard a better pitcher. On his own, he'd never make it. Inserted #3, with Wang and Hughes in front of him, and we're looking at a very nice career for all three. Right now, Clippard and Moose should reap benefits with Wang, Pettitte, and Clemens in the rotation. Those three guys are going to make Clip's and Moose's money pitches a lot stronger. Now if we can just get Joe to start letting these guys finish the games they start, we're in business.
Seems like you guys have alot of confidence in Wang being the ace of this staff.. Can anyone explain to me why? From an outsiders perspective he seems like just another inconsistent middle of the rotation guy..
I guess falling #2 to Santana's Cy Young last year makes him an inconsistent, middle of the rotation guy, huh? :wink: He's a very good pitcher. He hasn't given up a homer in a month. The vast majority of his outs come via the ground ball. He has composure about 95% of the time. He pitched a 7 inning perfect game a few weeks ago. He's our ace, without question.
Wow, I had no idea he finished second in the cy voting last year. Again from an outsiders perspective that tells me the pitching in the AL is bad, real bad. I know he had 19 wins last year but his numbers other than the wins was average at best.
Well, honestly, the whole reason he was in contention for the award WAS his wins. It's not because AL pitching talent is bad, but because he dominated the league with his sinker. He may not K a lot of guys, but he also doesn't face too many per start (and that's not because he gets knocked out of the game.) He induces TONS of ground balls. Last night, in a complete game victory, he got 14 ground balls for outs. He's not flashy, but he's effective.
