Scattered thoughts after a walk off victory

As you know, last night the Yankees defeated the White Sox by the score of 5-2. Here is how it all went down. Derek Jeter homered to lead off the game, and Johnny Damon hit a home run in the 3rd inning to put the Yankees up 2-0. CC Sabathia pitched shut out the White Sox through 6 innings, though he ran into some trouble in the 7th as he allowed two runs. Luckily for the Yankees, Nick Swisher preserved the tie game in the 7th by throwing Ramon Castro out at the plate to end the inning. Phil Hughes (finally) came in to pitch the 8th, and he struck out the side. Mariano Rivera pitched a scoreless 9th, and the game went into the bottom of the ninth. At this time many Yankee fans were starting to smell a walk off, but the Yankees were unable to score in the 9th so the game went to extra innings. Brian Bruney who pitched a scoreless 10th. And then in the bottom of the 10th Robinson Cano hit a shot to the Yankees bullpen in right-center to give the Yankees the Yankees the win, and to put everybody but the White Sox into celebration mode.

Notes

Change of plans

The whole plan of giving Joba Chamberlain extra rest between starts to limit his innings limit has been scratched in favor of another plan. Now the Yankees plan to have Jobapitch every 5 days, but they will limit his innings. This means that we will see a lot of 5 or less inning starts, which the Yankees will be able to deal with because they can call up several bullpen arms to back up Joba once the rosters expand on September 1st. While I like the idea of getting Joba back in a starter’s regular routine, this plan only makes sense if the Yankees plan on starting him off a starts of say 4 innings and building up to starts of about 7 innings come playoff time, and I’m pretty sure this is the Yankees plan.

Brian Cashman throws a wrench in the Red Sox plans

Earlier this week when the Red Soxworked out a trade with the Metsto bring Billy Wagner to Boston, Chris Carter (current with the Red Sox AAA affiliate) was set to go to the Mets. However, in order for the Red Sox to be able to trade Carter to the Mets, Carter would first need to clear waivers, so Carter was publicly named as a player to be named later so that no teams (other than the Mets and the Red Sox themselves) would know that the Red Sox wanted to trade him and he would easily clear waivers. However, Brian Cashman realized that the Red Sox wanted to trade Carter and claimed him off waivers. The Red Sox immediately pulled Carter back for obvious reasons (why would they want to give a young player to their rivals & the Mets would be pretty upset if the Red Sox gave the player they wanted away to another team). The problem for the Red Soxnow is that they are stuck with Chris Carter for the rest of the season, and they have to use a 40 man spot on him, wasting a spot that the they wanted to use on another player such as Paul Byrd. I mention Paul Byrd because the Yankees had interest in him earlier this year, but Byrd wanted a guaranteed 40 man spot when rosters expand in September, and the Yankees were unwilling to meet his demands. If Byrd was asking for the guaranteed 40 man team from all teams that wanted to sign him, then the Red Sox have to call him up on September 1st, and are now short a 40 man spot because of Chris Carter. See it all comes together. Just another case of Brian Cashman making life hard for the Red Sox.