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EVENTS AD PARTNERS
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1. New York Yankees They may be getting long in the tooth, but these Bombers still have their bite By Tom Verducci
Girardi, who would become a free agent after the Series and sign with the Cubs, intuitively knew he wouldn't catch Roger Clemens in Game 4, even though he had started all of the Yankees' previous 11 postseason games except for the four times Orlando Hernandez pitched. Manager Joe Torre likes to have Jorge Posada catch Hernandez, partly because Hernandez, who speaks little English, can communicate with Posada in his native Spanish tongue.
Game 4, which New York won 4-1 to wrap up the Series, was the night Posada's training wheels came off. Torre wanted Posada, his catcher of the future, to get the confidence boost of catching a World Series clincher, especially after what had been such a mysteriously poor season for Posada that the Yankees had ordered him to get his eyes checked. (They were fine.) Whether New York becomes the first team since the 1972, '73 and '74 Athletics to win three consecutive world championships depends largely on whether age catches up to the veteran-heavy Yankees. It also depends heavily on whether Posada, who turns 29 in August, turns out to be as trustworthy as Girardi, not just for one night but for a full year, including October. New York has no viable backup if the answer is no. The switch-hitting Posada had to rally just to bat .245 last season. After 939 major league at bats, he's a career .252 hitter, including .225 against righthanders. More alarming for the Yankees has been his erratic play behind the plate, especially in the first half of last season. The pitching staff's confidence in him was shaken last season by his 17 passed balls. When asked to explain his defensive troubles, Posada says, "Every night I thought I had to go 4 for 4 with four home runs and 10 RBIs. Of course you can't do that, but when I didn't hit, I lost concentration." Except for 24-year-old rookie lefthander Ed Yarnall, who figures to be the No. 5 starter, the staff that Posada will catch is burdened by many well-worn odometers. Hernandez, who claims to be 30 but is thought to be a few years older, threw 214 1/3 innings last year. That was a 22-inning jump on his 1998 season and, he has said, more than he ever threw in Cuba. David Cone, 37, threw six innings or fewer in 16 of his 31 starts last year. He opted not to throw over the winter and then opened spring training by lobbing his fastball 82 mph. The former workhorse has downshifted into an energy conservation mode in his career's twilight years. Clemens, also 37, fights time with a more aggressive attitude. He lost 15 pounds over the winter, unleashed 70 pitches in his first spring start -- twice as many as most pitchers -- including one that went 97 mph. Clemens also exercised between spring training innings, ran four seven-minute miles a day and threw twice between starts, the second time at 55 feet "just to lock in the muscle memory." "I don't make any concessions to age as far as my stuff goes," says Clemens, who's coming off career-worst marks for ERA (4.60) and walks per nine innings (4.3), which he partly attributed to a bothersome hamstring injury. "I can still reach back and hump it up there in the upper 90s whenever I want to. I'm still a power pitcher." Age also has become an issue for rightfielder Paul O'Neill, 37, and, to a lesser extent, third baseman Scott Brosius, 33. O'Neill's average dropped 32 points last year. He had more opportunities to drive in runs than major league RBI champion Manny Ramirez of the Indians -- New York leadoff batter Chuck Knoblauch and No. 2 man Derek Jeter reached base a combined 602 times -- but he drove in fewer runs (110) than the Royals' Jermaine Dye (119). Brosius's average dropped 53 points, mostly because of a .188 funk after July while he endured the fatal illness of his father. "The Yankees are vulnerable, more so than the last couple of years," says one AL G.M. "You look at the age on their staff, Knoblauch has throwing problems, O'Neill may be in his last year and they lost Girardi, which was a big blow." That may be so, but New York is built for October. Any team that knocks off the Yankees in the postseason will have to outpitch a pressure-proof staff. New York's top three relievers, Jeff Nelson, Mike Stanton and the incomparable Mariano Rivera, have a 1.10 ERA in 114 1/3 postseason innings. Its top four starters are 22-10 with a 3.69 ERA in 52 postseason games. "Yes, the age of the staff is an issue," Cone says, "but I'll take our experience factor any day." Issue date: March 27, 2000
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