Friday, September 18, 2015

Game Thread: New York Yankees @ New York Mets 9/18


The New York Yankees and the New York Mets are prepared to fight for bragging rights, city control and overall standings in their respected playoff pictures tonight inside Citi Field. The Subway Series returns to Major League Baseball tonight as the Mets and their fans try and ignore the past 17 years of the series that the Yankees have dominated, especially if they do well in this series, while the Yankees just go back to business as usual after a much needed day off yesterday. The Yankees will send Masahiro Tanaka to the mound tonight to face off against the Mets starter and rookie Steven Matz. The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network, MLB Network, WPIX Channel 11 for the Mets feed and MLB TV.

To get your tickets for this series inside Citi Field be sure to click the Yankees Tickets link at the top of the blog to get yours today. If you wouldn’t be caught dead inside the Mets stadium then the team returns home soon for a big eight-game home stand against the Chicago White Sox and the Boston Red Sox and you can see those games live as well as the team wraps up their 2015 regular season. If you can’t make it live or you’re looking for someone to talk to during the games be sure to head over to twitter and give @GreedyStripes a follow to interact with us during each and every Yankees game this season.


Subway Series on Tanaka Day, doesn’t get much better than this. Go Yankees!

DO NOT Pitch To Yoenis Cespedes


The New York Yankees and the New York Mets are a mere two hours away from kicking off a three game series inside Citi Field. These two teams will play all weekend long including tomorrow afternoon and Sunday night on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball (because who doesn't love playing until midnight before having to travel this late in the season, right?). These two teams faced off three times already this season and the Yankees won two of those three games inside Yankee Stadium. These Yankees were a different team then with Nathan Eovaldi and Mark Teixeira and the Mets are a different team, and a much better team this time around, with Tyler Clippard and the man of the hour in New York right now, Yoenis Cespedes.

Cespedes has not faced the Yankees as a member of the Mets this season but he faced off against New York plenty of time as a member of the Detroit Tigers. These stats mean very little in the grand scheme of things because Cespedes has been playing with a new fire lit under him of late but here they are nonetheless, Cespedes against current Yankees pitching in his career.


*courtesy of ESPN.com 

DO NOT pitch to Yoenis Cespedes all weekend long. That is all.

UPDATED: The History of the Subway Series


1997:

Dave Milicki throws a complete game shutout to win the very first game but the Yankees would take the next two to win the Subway Series 2-1.

1998:

Mike Piazza was added to the Mets to add fuel to the rivalry, also in hopes of the Mets having a playoff push, but the Yankees still won the Subway Series 2-1

1999:

Interleague Play was expanded to where both teams hosted a series. The Mets won their series 2-1 at Shea Stadium and the Yankees won their series 2-1 at Yankee Stadium.

2000:

On July, 8 2000 the Yankees and Mets played a split doubleheader, one game at Yankee Stadium and one game at Shea Stadium, and the Yankees took both games 4-2. The Yankees would win that season series and these two teams would meet in the World Series with the Yankees taking home the championship in five games.

2001:

Yankees win the series 4-2

2002:

Yankees win the series 4-2

2003:

The Yankees won all six games to sweep the season series for the first time.

2004:

The Mets would win their first Subway Series 4-2 after sweeping the Yankees in Shea Stadium.

2005:

The Mets won their first series at Yankee Stadium this season and almost swept the Yankees at Yankee Stadium before Jason Giambi had a ninth inning game winning hit to split the season series 3-3.

2006:

These two teams would split the season series 3-3.

2007:

These two teams would split the season series 3-3.

2008:

The New York Mets would win the Subway Series for only the second time and got their first sweep at Yankee Stadium. Mets win the series 4-2.

2009:

The Mets were swept at Citi Field and would lose two of three games at Yankee Stadium to lose the series 5-1.

2010:

These two teams would split the season series 3-3.

2011:

Yankees won the series 4-2 just days after Derek Jeter joined the 3,000 hit club.

2012:

The Mets could only scamper one win and lose the series 5-1.

2013:

The Yankees offense was nonexistent and for the first time the Mets swept all four games against the Yankees.

2014:

The Yankees and Mets split the new four game Subway Series while neither made any ground in the overall standings.


2015:

Yankees won two games of the three games played inside Yankee Stadium this season with three more coming this weekend inside CitiField.

Total Yankees Wins: 58
Total Mets Wins: 43

Game Preview: New York Yankees @ New York Mets 9/18


The Subway Series has probably never meant as much to both teams at the same time as it does this weekend as the New York Yankees and the New York Mets face off head-to-head inside Citi Field. The Mets are basically a virtual lock to win the National League East Division while the Yankees seems confident and content with winning a Wild Card if their run at the American League East falls short to Toronto. This will be a playoff atmosphere and the closest you’re going to get to playoff baseball on September 18th tonight in Queens. The Yankees will send Masahiro Tanaka to the mound to face off against Steven Matz for the Mets. The game will be played at 7:05 pm ET and can be seen on the YES Network, MLB Network, WPIX Channel 11 for your Mets fans that may be reading this and MLB TV.

  • Tanaka has been used on five days of rest for much of this season as the team looked to limit his innings in hopes of keeping him healthy but this is the stretch run and the caution is going out the window. Tanaka is pitching on four days of rest tonight and likely will for the remainder of the season. Tanaka will be making his second start of his Subway Series career inside Citi Field tonight after pitching a shutout in his Subway Series debut in May of 2014. Tanaka heads into the start fresh off throwing seven scoreless innings in a win over the Toronto Blue Jays as he continues to look stronger and stronger as the season goes along.


  • Matz has made two starts since coming off the disabled list with a torn lat muscle and has picked up right where he left off before the injury. Matz had posted a 2.61 ERA in those two starts and will look to improve that tonight as the Subway Series shifts to Queens.



The New York Mets and their fans are quick to tell you how good their team is doing this season and how much better their record and their place in the standings is compared to the Yankees. These same Mets fans conveniently forget that three of the worst teams in Major League Baseball are in their division, the Phillies, Braves and Marlins, and the other team they are beating up on, the Nationals, are one of the teams that have been hit the hardest by injury this season (not that this should or could be used as an excuse). What Mets fans don’t understand is a lion knows that he’s a lion, he doesn’t have to beat his chest and roar to tell everyone he is a lion. The lion’s prey knows that he’s a lion and they don’t stick around to find out the consequences of messing with a lion. The New York Yankees are the lion in this metaphor and hopefully this weekend the Mets will be the prey. Go Yankees!

My Final “Stephen Drew Sucks” Post for 2015


If this post sounds like me waiving a white flag that’s because it was designed to, I give up. Play Stephen Drew for the rest of the damn season, see if I care. I have begged and pleaded on this site to rid the team of Drew and his .200 average, pretty much all of which are home runs or unproductive outs, and I’ve given the team many options. Robert Refsnyder being one of those options, Brendan Ryan being another, Dustin Ackley who has been hot lately and even a few potential trade acquisitions like Starlin Castro, Ian Kinsler or Jose Reyes but here we stand on September 18, 2015 still tweeting “Stephen Drew Sucks” four times a night at least. This will be my last.

Stephen Drew comes into tonight’s game with a .203 batting average with 17 home runs and 44 RBI. Drew has amassed 380 at bats and 425 plate appearances while only mustering 77 hits, 17 of them have gone for an extra base hit that was not a home run. Drew has gone a whopping 73 games, not at bats I said GAMES, without a hit this season. I realize you don’t jolt and revitalize an offense from the #9 hole and I wholeheartedly agree with that but you can also keep the line moving for the table setters and the meat of the order with some semblance of a 9th hole guy in the lineup. Can the team at least get someone with a decent on base percentage? Is that too much to ask? By the way a decent on base percentage is significantly higher than Drew’s .273 OBP currently, just as an FYI.

I can hear the naysayers now bringing up his superior defense, his defensive UZR/150 is -6.8, his fielding percentage is .979, he’s committed 9 errors and has not passed the eye test whatsoever recently, but that may not be the case anymore. Drew may be the “experienced” one and Drew may have been the one that “got you there” but that doesn’t necessarily make him the best option. Ask Greg Bird, who was up before the Mark Teixeira injury before someone gets temporary memory loss in the comments section, and ask Luis Severino, who was going to come up before the Michael Pineda injury if you remember correctly but lost out on a numbers game, about experience and who got you there.

One last time… Stephen Drew Sucks… but go ahead and play him anyway, I don’t care.


*disclaimer. I will probably get upset and go back on this post and tweet out “Stephen Drew Sucks” probably tonight if he plays if not sooner. Sue me, he sucks.

Quick Hit: Pitching Matchups for the Subway Series


The Subway Series Part II is ready to kick off tonight as the New York Mets stay home inside CitiField to play host to the New York Yankees. In the history of the Subway Series, which began alongside Interleague Play in 1997, the Yankees have dominated the series winning the season series in eight seasons and split the series in five other series. The Mets are no longer the younger brother to the Yankees that they can slap around though so this should be a fun and competitive series.

Here is the pitching matchups for the weekend series in Queens:

Masahiro Tanaka (12-6 3.40 ERA) vs. Steven Matz (3-0 1.88 ERA)
Michael Pineda (10-8 4.25 ERA) vs. Noah Syndergaard (8-6 3.20 ERA)
CC Sabathia (4-9 4.93 ERA) vs. Matt Harvey (12-7 2.88 ERA)

Harvey is on an innings limit and manager Terry Collins has stated that his ace may not last long per start as the team continues to attempt to limit his innings this season. Matz is a relative unknown to the Yankees batters and Syndergaard is quietly one of the best pitchers in the National League this season. It's not going to be an easy series for either side, especially if CC Sabathia pitches like he did last time out against the Tampa Bay Rays, and will not be easy to predict so stay tuned all weekend long.

Weekly Check In: The 2015 Finale


The New York Yankees are in the midst of a fine season in the Majors while their farm systems and minor league affiliates have shared in the team’s success this season. The Staten Island Yankees played for the New York-Penn League Championship this season, the Pulaski Yankees made the playoffs in their first season of existence and the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre RailRiders made a run at the Governor’s Cup in 2015. This season was great across the board for the Yankees as many prospects, Domingo Acevedo, Greg Bird, Luis Severino, Gary Sanchez, Brady Lail, Eric Ruth and others, made a name for themselves and made themselves household names to the fans.

We salute these teams for their great seasons and we thank them all for their hard work and dedication to this sport that we know and love as baseball. Thank you.

Scranton/Wilkes Barre RailRiders: 81-63
Trenton Thunder: 71-71
Tampa Yankees: 66-72
Charleston Riverdogs: 32-38
Staten Island Yankees: 41-34
Pulaski Yankees: 45-23
GCL1 Yankees: 26-34
GCL2 Yankees: 26-34
DSL1 Yankees: 52-20
DSL2 Yankees: 40-32

This Day in New York Yankees History 9/18: Yankees Sabathia Wins 20 Games


CC Sabathia before coming to the New York Yankees never had a 20 win season, although he did win 19 games in two separate occasions, but finally reached the milestone on this day in 2010. The New York Yankees would beat the Baltimore Orioles 11-3 on this day. The southpaw would lead the league in victories and is the fourth Yankee to win 20 games since 2000 joining Roger Clemens (2001), Andy Pettitte (2003) and Mike Mussina (2008).


Speaking of clutch Yankee pitching and beating the Baltimore Orioles Mike Mussina became the first American League pitcher to win 10+ games in 16 consecutive seasons. The Yankees would thump the Orioles on this day 12-0. Moose would join Steve Carlton (18), Warren Spahn (17), Nolan Ryan (16), Don Sutton (17), Cy Young (19) and Greg Maddux (20) as one of only seven pitchers to ever achieve the feat. Mussina would get his 17thconsecutive season with at least 10 wins in 2008 in his final season.