Mariano Rivera told the Post he’d be willing to accept a one-year deal to continue his career with the Bombers. The question whether the Yankees should consider it. The answer to that question is clearly yes. Mo's K rate is down slightly this year, to 7.7/9 from a career 8.2, but he’s been here before with a 6.6 in 2006 and he was effective with a 1.80 ERA. He posted a 7.5 K rate in 2004 and an ERA of 1.94. He lives on command (his BB rate is still excellent at 1.85), throwing groundballs (52.5% this year, 54.1% career), and keeping the ball in the ballpark. His HR/9 is just 0.3 this year comparing nicely with his 0.49 career. So far this year Mo has benefitting from a minuscule .144 BHIP% which has helped him hold opponents to a .116 OBA and an 0.58 WHIP. That can’t last, but the important point is that there’s little to no erosion in his skill set. If appears he’s got at least one more good year in him. At this point he still looks like a solid freeze this winter.
Jose Guillen is happy to simply be battling a blister on his left foot as opposed to the lower back and ankle issues the 34-year-old is more used to. He’s riding a 16-game hitting streak after a single in 4 trips last night, and he is on pace for a 30/100 season if all goes as it has so far. There are a couple of outliers in Jose’s performance so far, one being his 25% K rate, which is well over his 18.8% career K rate. His BHIP% has been favorable at .310 and that has helped some and so has his HR/FB% of 16.0 which is well over his 11.3% career rate. He’s playing well and he’s had some luck. The big issue going forward is much more likely to be his health as an injury seems inevitable, but there is also some projectable regression to mean as well. He’s not going to collapse, but we may be witnessing the best stretch of Jose’s season. The Royals hope things continue until they make a deadline deal for him, but that may be optimistic.
The Yankees are set to start shaving workload from Phil Hughes for the next 3-4 weeks in an effort to limit his IP for the year. He pitched 146 IP in 2006, 69 in 2008, and 105 last year. He’s already posted 82.3 IP this year and the Yankees are rightfully leery of continuing that pace. His ERA has climbed each month this year but after a 2.02 in April it had nowhere else to go. Over his last seven starts he’s gone 5-1 but with a 4.78 ERA and a .269 OBA. He’s also given up 6 of his 7 HRs allowed. I wouldn’t read too much into that, but this is smart on the Yankees part, and I think they should go even further and try and limit him to significantly less than 150 IP although that seems unrealistic at this point. Hughes should go Tuesday of next week against the M’s who he has limited to a 2.00 ERA over 4 career appearances and 1 start.
Justin Verlander is rolling into tonight’s start against the Mets winning all three of his June starts with a 2.86 for the month including a season-high 11 strikeouts against the Nationals in his last start on Wednesday. The Mets however have won 10 of 11 at home while the Tigers have lost 8 of 11 on the road. Tonight’s opposing starter Jonathon Niese is 2-0 with a 2.30 ERA in his last 5 starts at Citi Field.
They were partying like it’s 1999 in Washington last night last night in an unintentional throw-back pitcher’s duel between Livan Hernandez and Bruce Chen. Chen gave up 2 runs over 6 IP on 3 hits and 4 walks while striking out three but lost 2-1 to Hernandez. I’d like to tell you his indicators say Chen is about to blow up, but entering last night’s game his indicators say he’s been a bit unlucky with a 66.5% LOB% and a .331 BHIP%. Of course I still think he’s hot potato that you don’t want in your lineup when he does … well … blow up. Resist the urge for now. He’s not this good. Bruce gets the Cardinals on Sunday. He’s 0-3 lifetime against St Louis with a 5.71 ERA.
