Bullpen Spoils New Yankee Stadium Debut

Damaso Marte & Jose Veras blew another one for us.

Veras, I have accepted is streaky. He'll be lights out for weeks but then he'll have periods of poor control that lead to him getting rocked. I'll live with him, but you have to monitor him closely when he's in one of his unreliable periods.

Marte, on the other hand has been consistenly bad for the Yanks since they got him. Girardi & Cashman want to believe otherwise, due to his body of work in Pittsburgh. But this is New York. I don't care what you did other places. You have to get it done here. Last year he was used as a lefty specialist. He failed. He was used as a set up guy. He failed. He's been used as a mop up guy. He failed.

At this point Marte should be used as a lefty specialist only, pitching to 1 hitter at a time. If he can handle that for the next couple months, then, maybe his role can be expanded. God, I hate the fact the Yanks gave him a 3 year contract!!!

The Cody Ransom Experiment should be shut down, NOW. It's obvious his bat is non-existent but if we can't even get steady defense from him, he ain't worth a Zimbabwe Dollar. He was probably looking at this chance as his last shot at the major leagues since he's 33. When he started off poorly, he obviously started pressing and things just snowballed. Time to move on and get a major league quality body at 3B until ARod returns.

CC Sabathia didn't look too good yesterday. Too many pitches led to him leaving after 5 and turning the game over to a shaky bullpen. But at least he was able to battle in this one and keep us in the game unlike his first start in Baltimore. Maybe he was too jacked up yesterday due to it being the first game in the new stadium and pitching against his former team. Hopefully, he'll bounce back in his next start.

David Robertson pitched two scoreless innings to finish the game. Robertson was called up due to the Nady injury and had been lights out at Scranton. The Yanks should not hesitate to swap out guys in the bullpen. We have too much depth in the minors to continuously send guys out there who aren't doing the job. Marte & Veras, this means you.

Cano continued his hot bat yesterday with 3 more hits plus a walk. Keep it up, Robbie.

Three Things the Weekend Showed Us

1) CC is a horse.
I was reminded on Saturday why I have always liked CC Sabathia. From his early days in Cleveland, before he had become a consistent winner, I marvelled at this guy. He's 6'7", big, strong & left-handed. He throws hard, mid 90's+ with great control. And he wants the ball. He's the type of guy that when a scouts are talking about him they would say, "Great Make-up". When you combine "Great Stuff" with "Great Make-up" you get "Ace". It's the reason a guy like Eric Bedard isn't an "Ace". He has great stuff but he doesn't have that certain something that makes a Josh Beckett or a Johan Santana an "Ace". CC has that. I'm glad he's finally a Yankee.

2) Joba looks fine
Six innings, 1 ER, 5 SO's. Good day for Joba. Too bad he couldn't get the win, but if he keeps pitching like this, the wins will come.

3) There is a reason Cody Ransom was 33 and in the minor leagues
I had thought Cody could be a good stop gap until ARod returned. But an .050 batting average with 7 K's thru 6 games is just not getting it done. Besides that he's looked very shaky on defense. I never thought I'd long for the days of Wilson Betemit but I do.

I was going to say something about the bullpen blowing yesterday's game but I won't. The bullpen had been lights out in the previous 4 games so they were due for a little blip. Hopefully, that's all it was, a blip, and not a trend of things to come.

I'm praying Tex' wrist is just sore with no lingering damage. We sure need his bat right now.

...And was I the only one who turned off the Master's once Tiger & Phil finished their rounds?