GOOD HEAVENS!
Madden: 2nd straight loss to Mets may not bother Yank brass, but it would’ve sent Boss into rage
Three days after Matt Harvey sets down Yanks, Mets jump on Masahiro Tanaka to pound Bombers again, which would have infuriated Boss.
TAMPA — It is an accepted premise — except, of course, when it came to George Steinbrenner — that spring training games are mostly meaningless and that none of the players’ performances, good or bad, are anything worth getting all worked up about.
And so, this would have to be the stance for the Yankee high command — and they all were there, Hal and Hank Steinbrenner and team president Randy Levine, in the pinstripe penthouse at Steinbrenner Field on Wednesday — after “Army-Navy II: the Tampa version” turned out just as distressful for the Yankees as their first Grapefruit League tilt with the Mets in Port St. Lucie on Sunday, when Matt Harvey dominated Joe Girardi’s boys with 5.2 innings of two-hit, shutout ball in a 6-0 Met win. There were no postgame meetings called to analyze Masahiro Tanaka’s down-tick in velocity this spring, or Dellin Betances’ inability of late to pitch a clean inning, or Carlos Beltran’s tepid bat in the three-hole, or even the fact that Alex Rodriguez seems to be the least of the Yankees’ concerns this spring.
Nor did either of the Steinbrenner boys come storming down to the Yankee clubhouse to confront Girardi — as their dad famously did with Billy Martin back in 1977 when the Yankees lost a Saturday night Grapefruit League game to the Mets across the bay in St. Petersburg that was televised on Channel 9 back to New York. On that occasion, Martin hollered at Steinbrenner to get the hell out of his clubhouse and the two nearly came to blows in the trainer’s room as Billy’s fist landed in an ice bucket, splattering ice all over GM Gabe Paul, who was attempting to be a peacemaker. It was bad enough the Yankees had lost to the Mets, but, with the game being telecast back to New York, The Boss was convinced thousands of New Yorkers would be running out the next day to buy Mets season tickets. Hmmm. Girardi fortunately did not have to explain to his bosses that all of what seemed to ail the Yankees in their 7-2 loss to the Mets on Wednesday — Tanaka hovering around 89-90 miles per hour all afternoon, giving up three runs and four hits, including a home run to John Mayberry Jr. on a curveball and a hard-hit ground rule double to Matt Reynolds on a 93 mph fastball; Betances, in his first backto-back outings of the spring, hanging a curveball to Juan Lagares for a two-run homer; Beltran taking another 0-for-3 to drop his spring average to .200 — was meaningless, routine spring training prep work for the real games that, let’s not forget, don't begin for another 11 days.
Instead, he had only the media to tell it to and, to them, he said he thought Tanaka “threw the ball pretty well,” and that Betances, who has given up runs in his last four outings, was actually throwing with even lower velocity this time last year, “when he didn’t really ramp it up until the last days of spring training.”
Tanaka and Betances agreed. For his part, Tanaka — who, unlike Harvey, WILL be pitching Opening Day — tried to sound convincing that his 8990 mph velocity had nothing to do with any trepidation he might have about blowing out that frayed elbow. Rather, he said, he was concentrating more on throwing his two-seam (sinker/splitter) fastball, the reason being, “my fourseamer was hit better during the regular season last year.” On that, he was sort of right. According to the Brooks pitch-tracking website, seven of the 15 homers he gave up last year were off four-seamers as opposed to four off two-seamers, while opposing batters slugged .633 against his four-seamers and .495 versus his two-seamers.
Betances likewise said not to worry. “I’m not happy with giving up runs in my last four outings,” he said. “But I felt better today. I’ve just got to make a better pitch to Lagares there.”
It all sounded fine. It just didn’t make very good television for the Yankee legions back in New York. And right now, for the Yankee brass concerned about the lack of buzz around this Yankee team that has finished out of the postseason money two years in a row, and how this is potentially impacting season-ticket sales, perception is everything. So, too, is beating the Mets, even in meaningless Grapefruit League games. There was, however, at least one notable consolation for them in that Forbes magazine — in its latest rankings of Major League Baseball franchise values — put the Yankees once again at No. 1 at $3.2 billion, making them only the second professional sports team to be valued over $3 billion (the Cowboys are the other one).
After the media had cleared out of his office, Girardi was asked how, when he was a player, The Boss would have reacted to everything that transpired at Steinbrenner Field on Wednesday.
Smiling weakly, the manager replied: “Oh, he wouldn’t have been happy.”