MILWAUKEE – It’s just a cruel joke, really, that on the day Kevin Brown suffered the latest meltdown in a season in which the Yankee pitching staff has been as toxic as Three Mile Island, the Rangers’ Kenny Rogers would improve his record to 8-2 and lower his ERA to 1.62 while beating the Royals, 8-1.
Rogers may well be one of the least popular pitchers to ever wear pinstripes, his laissez-faire personality having grated on Joe Torre and George Steinbrenner and just about everyone else associated with the Yankees. And no one will ever complain about what the Yankees received when they ultimately dumped Rogers between the 1997 and ’98 seasons: the sainted Scott Brosius.
Still, Rogers seems intent on getting better and better the older he gets, and so he belongs in what has become a crowded team photo of all the former Yankee pitchers currently enjoying wonderful seasons for other teams.
“Everything we’ve ever accomplished, we got there on the strength of our pitching,” Torre said Sunday afternoon, after his Yankees were hammered 9-3 by a Minnesota Twin “B” team missing no fewer than four starting players – a give-up lineup that nevertheless battered Brown in the sixth inning and handed the Yanks their seventh loss in their last eight games.
“Pitching remains the focal point of what we’re about,” Torre continued. “And we have to start getting better results from our pitchers.”
That’s the real punch line in all of this. The Yankees thought they’d honestly gone and built themselves a bulletproof starting rotation in the offseason.
Mike Mussina was already here, and he’d had a rough go of the 2004 season, but that was because he’d had to all but carry the staff. Brown was already here, and Yankee fans hate him almost as much as they did Rogers back in the day – and with cause – but how much damage could he do as a No. 5 starter who would be nowhere near a Game 7 if it came to that this year?
No. First came Carl Pavano. Then Jaret Wright. And then, the coup de grace, Randy Johnson. Line ’em up, and it was enough to make Yankee fans get goosebumps. That, right there, was a slump-proof rotation. You may take a game or two off the Yankees, maybe three in a row, but there’s no way you were going to suffer long losing streaks with those five lined up next to each other.
Right?
Instead, every start feels like a new game of Russian Roulette, except when the one name missing from that rostrum of regulars, Chien-Ming Wang, gets the ball. Worse, scattered across baseball are pitchers who once belonged to the Yankees who have started to make their considerable presences felt for other teams. It’s a sensation not unlike the early ’80s, when Yankee fans could only grumble when they would check the morning newspaper and see the likes of Willie McGee, Fred McGriff and Doug Drabek taunting them for dreadful deals past.
Now? Even if you exclude Rogers from that list, there is Javier Vazquez (5-4, 4.38) and Brad Halsey (4-3, 3.48) of the Diamondbacks. There is Orlando Hernandez (6-1, 4.15) and Jose Contreras (2-2, 3.27) of the White Sox. There is, of course, Andy Pettitte (3-6, 3.47). There is Jeff Weaver of the Dodgers (5-5).
And, perhaps most disconcerting, there is Yhency Brezoban, now the Dodgers’ closer, a throw-in in the Brown deal who seems to be fast-tracking Mariano Rivera’s career and is averaging a strikeout an inning.
You think any or all of the above could have helped a little?
Not that anyone’s going to hold any telethons for the Yankees, of course. The fact is, Randy Johnson was all anyone wanted to talk about last night before he took his regular turn against the Brewers, and Johnson is still certain to have some Hall of Fame nights across the next few months. And the talent is certainly there with everyone else to expect something better as the weather turns hot.
For their sake, they’d better.
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The ones who got away
There are plenty of fine Yankee pitchers – now hurling for other teams, that is. While the current crop of Pinstripers may be lacking, there is no shortage of quality former Bombers employed elsewhere. Here are some of them:
Pitcher — Team — W-L — ERA — BB — SO
Brad Halsey Diamondbacks 4-3 3.48 13 41
Javier Vazquez Diamondbacks 5-4 4.38 8 69
David Wells Red Sox 3-4 5.85 4 28
Jose Contreras White Sox 2-2 3.27 27 51
Orlando Hernandez White Sox 6-1 4.15 25 33
Brandon Claussen Reds 2-3 4.50 17 26
Roger Clemens Astros 4-3 1.67 21 80
Andy Pettitte Astros 3-6 3.47 14 47
Yhency Brazoban* Dodgers 2-1 3.91 9 24
Jeff Weaver Dodgers 5-5 5.65 19 48
Jon Lieber Phillies 7-4 4.54 18 42
Chris Hammond Padres 5-0 2.22 5 17
Kenny Rogers Rangers 8-2 1.62 25 33
Ted Lilly Blue Jays 3-6 7.41 25 40
Esteban Loaiza Nationals 1-4 3.56 23 61
* – 11 saves
