Bronx & Beans

Bad news, Bronx boo-birds: the diamond will be filled with red B's, and not white interlocking NY's, when the American League all stars take the field for the final All Star Game at Yankee Stadium.

As of this writing, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Manny Ramirez are leading the way in the all-star votes for their respective positions. Jason Varitek trails Joe Mauer in a close race for catcher. The only Yanks who lead in balloting are A-Rod at third and that guy who used to date Mariah Carey over at short. Hideki Matsui could get the nod at DH over David Ortiz, who is leading in votes but is likely out due to injury. Johnny Damon is being a whiney baby about how he deserves a shot, but he is in sixth place in the outfield voting race, almost 300,000 votes behind 3rd place vote-getter Ichiro Suzuki.

In other words, there's a mighty good chance the whole right side of the infield will be Red Soxers at this year's Mid-Summer Classic. Meanwhile, the left side will be be occupied by two sure-thing All-Stars whose tickets to the game were punched in March. It also means five (six if Varitek makes the cut) of the eight starting position players will be Red Sox and/or Yankees. Will the Bleacher Creatures do a roll-call and conveniently skip over Man-Ram, Peds and Youkie? Probably.

Maybe a Yankee pitcher will start the game to settle the score. Oh, wait a minute.

More updates on the All Star voting are available on Kat O'Brien's blog at www.newsday.com/sports. Get into it - it's gonna be a heck of a game.

--Whittle

Well, it was bound to happen - Papelbon blew a save. However, the Sox rebounded with a win tonight against the Motor City Kitties. And that blown save was due in large part to Lugo's hideous fielding.

Right now is a good time to look at the AL's best closers and see who has he upper hand.

Papelbon - 3 ER's in 17 innings. 10 saves. 12 hits and one walk, good for a WHIP around 0.7. Lefties batting .194. Opponents OPSing .521.

Mariano - 0 ER's in 13 innings. 8 saves. 4 hits and no walks, good for a WHIP around 0.3. Lefties batting .053. Opponents OPSing .188.

Nevermind.

--Whittle

April is over, and you know what that means: time to panic. The conventional wisdom in baseball goes like this: the first two months of the season are for figuring out what you got; the second two months are for making improvements via trades and promotions; the final two months are when you make a run at the pennant.

So, we're a little early, but let's see just what the Yankees have got. If the lineups Girardi has been throwing out there are any indication, the Bombers have problems.

Girardi has yet to use a single lineup more than twice. Part of this is due to injuries, but it also has a lot to do with underperformance. But for the most part, the Yanks' lineup is setting up like this:

Johnny Damon - Nary a day goes by when I don't thank the Red Sox front office for letting this guy go. His numbers - .275 BA, 1 K every 5 AB's - are more reminiscent of Dwayne Hosey than the dynamic leadoff batter of 2004 and 2005.

Derek Jeter - Talking negative about "Cap'n Jeets" is like insulting someone's mother around here. Too bad. Homeboy is off to a slow start, and not enough has been made about it. No matter how many billboards you're on, a .674 OPS is a .674 OPS.

Bobby Abreu - Off to a slow start, but let's not even talk about that. The fact that Abreu won a Gold Glove in Philly is alarming enough to make you scream "David Wright!" The plays he botched out in right field last night didn't show up as errors, but they cost the Yankees the game.

Alex Rodriguez - Also off to a "meh" start, and he's hurt. A-Rod will heat up after he gets off the DL, but he's still going to get booed at Yankee Stadium until he hits a grand slam to win the World Series.

Hideki Matsui - Hey, every dog has its day. Godzilla is slugging .495 while batting a .316 clip. But the Yanks still don't have a real spot for him on the field. His fielding in left is about as effective as a stone statute of Chuck Knoblauch. He can DH, but the Yankees already have about 67 DHs on the roster and one of them, like Matsui, is lefthanded. That's a controversy waiting to happen.

Jorge Posada - Jorgie carried the Yanks last year, but now he's hurt. It's not supposed to be season-ending, but it's not what the Bombers need, either.

Jason Giambi - Not to flog a corpse, but this guy should just wear an albatross around his neck when he comes to bat. Less than 300 RBI and more than $80 million in salary since the start of the 2004 season. Oh, and he's batting .164.

Robinson Cano - Streaky, streaky, streaky. Cano will come alive at some point, but the Yanks need him now and he has responded with 7 RBI in 110 at bats. Oof.

Melky Cabrera - Here's a guy who is fulfilling his end of the deal by hitting a solid .280-something and getting on base at a .362 clip. Trouble is, he's supposed to be a character actor, not a leading man.

It all adds up to a sub-.500 record through 30 games. Fernandez and LaMonica are in for a long, hot summer.

--Whittle

In honor of statistician Chuck Waseleski, it's time for some telling statistics about how subpar the Yankees first 13 games have been.

Yeah, it's early, but it's never too early to bust out hard figures about the performance of the Yankees $209 million roster.

Factoids:
-The Yankees are OPSing an inconvenient .711 as a team. That means "on base plus slugging" (the Yanks are accomplishing neither).
-Jose Molina has the highest batting average on the team (.364) of all players with more than 13 at bats. He just got hurt and will likely be replaced by career .224 hitter Chad Moeller.
-One reason Molina has such a high average is schematic - pitchers are coming right at him (he has zero walks).
-Alex Rodriguez and Bobby Abreu have struck out 22 times in 96 at bats. That averages out to 272 strikeouts if the combine for as many at bats (1188) as they did in 2007.
-Robinson Cano is batting .111 against lefties.
-Kyle Farnsworth is allowing 2.053 walks and hits per innings pitched. It's a small sample size - 6.3 innings - but it's still bad.
-Ian Kennedy has totaled 5.3 innings in two starts. Righties are batting .333 and OPSing .899 against him. He's also walked six batters, although he's supposedly a control pitcher.
-The Yanks staff has allowed 105 hits, "good" for eighth in the American League.
-Don't let Brian Bruney's 0.00 ERA or horrendous new haircut fool you - he still stinks. Somebody needs to wake up George and tell him to get back on that "no long hair" rule. The guy has a career WHIP of 1.632, is a jobber, and stinks.
-Phil Hughes has managed to last only 11 innings in three starts. Despite lasting only 11 innings, he's allowed 24 walks and hits to go with 11 earned runs. Lefties are OPSing a Bondsian 1.121 against him.

Read 'em and weep, pinstripers.

--Whittle