Chien-Ming Wang – 3IP, 3H, 1R, 1HR, 0BB, 2K, 5GO, 2AO

Today marked Chien-Ming Wang’s second start of the Spring. He was slated to throw 40 pitches, and threw just under that. There were a few bumps along the way but he looked like he was getting into thigns overall. While Dave Eiland said he would be mostly working on the sinker today, he threw a bunch of sliders and a splitter.

The sinker is starting to sink (check out the GO: AO ratio there) and his breaking pitches are getting there. He threw a very nice slider to K Kelly Johnson but then the next at-bat he a bad changeup that just hung there and Casey Kotchman hammered it out for a homerun. The lone splitter he threw was a killer that Josh Anderson was completely fooled by. That came in the third inning.

Interesting note: if you check out pitch F/X, you’ll see that the overwhelming majority of homeruns Wang has given up over the last few years are on changeups he leaves up in the zone.

Brett Tomko – 3IP, 1H, 1R, 1HR, 0BB, 3K, 3GO, 3AO

A man of little significance. Unless horrible disasters happen, he is not making the team.

Phil Coke – 1IP, 2H, 1R, 0BB, 0K, 1GO, 2AO

Kept up the pattern of Yankees pitchers giving up solo homeruns today. Other than that, uneventful. I know some people see him as a favorite to make the bullpen, but I think the Yankees want to give him one last shot as a starter. Remember that average starters are infinitely more important than relievers, and lefty starters that can be even league average are more important than righties.

Kanekoa Texeira – .1IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 0K, 1GO, 1AO

Only faced two batters. Almost followed the solo-homerun pattern of the day but it wound up falling in for a double. Yanked after a groundout put the runner on third with one out.

Wilkin De La Rosa – .2IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 0K, 1GO, 1AO

De La Rosa is young and left-handed. The Yankees don’t really have many pitchers that throw with their left arm, though they do have a number of young pitchers. He was converted from outfield to pitcher in 2007, and like a lot of conversions he has some command problems. He did post good numbers for the Yankees in the minors last year, so he’s someone to keep an eye on in 2009 as he has a good ceiling. Unlikely to reach it, but it’s there.

He came out, got an infield chopper that stranded the runner at third. Followed that up by walking a batter and then got a somewhat nerve-wracking long fly out to left to wrap up his outing.

Michael Dunn – 1IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 1K, 0GO, 2AO

Another one of these elusive young lefties, Dunn spent last year at Tampa where he put up good K/9 numbers. He’s got a decent 4-seam fastball.

Other Notes

Xavier Nady is continuing to hand the Right Field job over to Nick Swisher, which is okay with me. He’s been looking somewhat bewildered at the plate, it’s almost like his season last year was an aberration.

Major Leaguers regulars starting for the Yankees were Johnny Damon, Xavier Nady and Jose Molina and for the Braves it was Kelly Johnson, Yunel Escobar, Casey Kotchman and Omar Infante. Jeff Francoeur was in for Atlanta as well but I am loathe to call his hitting “Major League”.

Here are the pitching lines with any notes that stuck out:

Ian Kennedy – 3IP, 3H, 2R, 1ER, 1BB, 0K, 4GO, 5AO

All three hits Kennedy allowed were doubles. Word is he was having trouble controlling his curveball, which will always kill him. He really needs that curve to be working to survive, it’s what the Yankees had him working on in Puerto Rico during the winter.

Dan Giese – 3IP, 2H, 1R, 1BB, 3K, 5GO, 1AO

Most notable thing about his day was that he hit a single and then scored when Damon hit a triple. He ran the bases and didn’t die, so the Yankees should keep him on the roster just in case Wang ever winds up on base again!

Andrew Brackman – 1IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 0K, 3GO, 0 AO

Mark Melancon – 1IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 0K, 2GO, 1AO

Phil Hughes – 2.2IP, 3H, 2R, 0BB, 2K, 0HR, 3AO, 3GO

A good outing, throwing mostly fastballs with a few curves and flashing his developing change-up quite a bit. The change was thrown mostly out of the zone. Not many well-hit balls, the first of those three hits was a bloop to leadoff the game and the last was a very Jeterian dribbler up the middle.

There was one hit batsmen–Curtis Granderson. Like the first outing, it grazed his uniform on the way in, so it’s just Hughes adjusting to pitching inside more.

Hughes’ strikeouts were: Adam Dunn looking on a nice curve, and David Wright frozen on a fastball that hit the outside corner.

No walks and 50/50 groundballs makes me happy. He threw about 45 pitches at the time he was taken out.

Phil Coke – 2.1IP, 1H, 0R, 0BB, 2K, 0HR, 2GO, 3AO

Coke came in with one runner on base (Jeter), gave up a groundball single to Chipper Jones (I’ve heard he is a pretty good baseball player!) and then pitched in shutdown mode.

He had a lot of success with his fastball, throwing it by Dunn and Ryan Braun to get those strikeouts (both swinging).

The flyballs he got towards the end were hit pretty well, but his time was up so it was safe.

Eric Hacker - 0.0IP, 2H, 4R, 3ER, 2BB, 0K, 2WP

Eric Hacker’s control was off and he had a very poor outing. He faced six batters, all of whom got on base. However, it’s important to remember that the highest level of pro-ball he’s pitched is AA.

He at one point induced a groundball that should have turned a doubleplay, except Angel Berroa fell on it and instead no outs were recorded. That would have made his outing merely bad instead of really bad.

He flashed a pickoff move a few times that seemed pretty good.

Michael Dunn – 1.2IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 3K, 0GO, 2AO

Dunn came in with two inherited runners, and allowed neither to score as he induced a shallow fly ball and then struck out both Granderson and Pedroia.

In his clean inning he walked Jeter, got DeRosa to fly out (it was a very long fly) and struck out David Wright. And then he hit his pitch ceiling and was lifted.

David Robertson – 1.1IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 2K, 1GO, 1AO

Robertson inherited a runner, who he stranded by striking out Adam Dunn throwing only fastballs. Robertson’s task today was to start throwing his curve, but he was still mostly relying on the fastball. His curve didn’t have the bite or placement that you usually expect but it’s early.

Jose Veras – 1IP, 0H, 0R, 1BB, 2K

Veras pitched a Veras inning, except he only walked one and didn’t hit anybody. Pedroia got caught stealing, so he didn’t get a chance to walk or hit anyone before recording the third out.

Chien-Ming Wang - 2.0IP, 2H, 0R, 0HR, 0BB, 0K, 2GO, 4AO

I really do not like that GO: AO ratio, but I’m not going to worry about it yet.

Brett Tomko – 2.0IP, 1H, 1R, 1HR, 1BB, 2K, 4GO, 1AO

Anthony Claggett – 2.0IP, 1H, 1R, 1HR, 0BB, 1K, 3GO, 3AO

Wilkin De La Rosa – 1.0IP, 1H, 0R, 0HR, 0BB, 1K, 0GO, 2AO

George Kontos – 0.1IP, 3H, 3R, 0HR, 1BB, 1K

Rough outing for Kontos, but he isn’t fighting for a job with the Major League team anyway. He’ll be starting off at Scranton Wilkes-Barre this year probably.

Steven Jackson - 1.2IP, 3H, 0R, 1K, 2GO, 2AO

Jackson had two inherited runners, one of which scored.

Other Notes

Posada was back in the lineup as DH today after being scratched last game. Went 1 for 3.

Joba is only going one inning today, Spring Training is long this year because of the World Baseball Classic so the starting five are probably going to get a break for a while. Minor League camp doesn’t start until 3/15 or so, so there is nobody to send anyone for a while until then.

The YES gun seems to be up to its normal tricks so far, or Joba is really holding back for no good reason. The first two fastballs he threw were 88mph according to it, which can’t be right.

Joba is leaving some fastballs up where they’re very hittable, I’m not really concerned here but it’s not much fun to watch. Two doubles in a row (to Delmon Young, then Jason Kubel) both smacked fastballs that were just left up there asking to be smacked out (but they were somehow not).

He threw one slider to Luke Hughes, which was an oddity since this is normally when you just throw fastball and changeups. It was a beauty and totally fooled the batter.

Joba’s final line: 1.0 IP, 3H, 2R, 0BB, 0K. 21 pitches/11 strikes.

Dan Giese…is who he is. The Yankees found him with by scouting International Leagues. He’s really limited and can’t go through a lineup enough times really to be a starting pitcher for the team, but he can be useful as a swingman/long reliever. Unfortunately for him, there are other better options for that now like Alfredo Aceves and Phil Coke so I don’t think he’ll make the Major League team.

Just gave up a homerun to Carlos Gomez. He should probably lose the swingman job in the bullpen just for that.

Pitches staying up in the zone all over the place in this game. It’s making things take a long time!

Giese finishes on a very not exciting strike-em-out/throw-em-out doubleplay.

Giese’s final line: 2.0IP, 4H, 4R, 1HR, 1BB, 1K

And now it’s time for my favorite relief pitcher, Jose Veras. His last time out it was no control Veras, so this time will probably be “can actually hit his spots” Veras.

Veras finishes up with a clean line. Had some very nice spots with his fastball, including a killer pitch that just hit the corner. He also threw a fastball that darted down and in out of nowhere, I don’t think I’ve seen him throw something with that kind of movement before. 2-seamer?

Veras’ final line: 1.0IP, 0H, 0R, 0BB, 2K

Michael Dunn in now after Veras. If you’re not familiar with Dunn, he’s a marginal pitching prospect who was in Tampa last year. Notable since he is one of the few left-handed pitchers the Yankees have lying around and not much else. He’s a recent conversion to pitching, so he’s very much a work in progress. Still has a while to go before his fate is determined, but being a lefty always helps out.

Dunn’s final line: 1IP, 1H, 0R, 1BB, 1K

Igawa in, he has no chance of making the team so this is just him getting a tune-up in before he heads back to anchor the AAA rotation. The starting lineups have been pretty much entirely switched out, so we’ve officially reached Spring Training garbage time.

Igawa’s final line: 1H, 0R, 0BB, 1K

Notable non-pitching things:

Cano walked on 5 pitches, didn’t hack at one bad pitch.

Jose Molina picked up where he left off, not hitting baseballs and throwing out runners.

Chad Gaudin, Billy Goat?

Kerry Wood has an injury of some sort.

Delmon Young swung at the first pitch he saw this year.

Derek Jeter grounded out to second in his first at bat.

Jose Veras hit a batter and walked the bases loaded.

Baseball is back!

The way I approach Spring Training is to look for certain things with specific players. Some examples of what I’m looking for this year are:

• How does Phil Hughes’ changeup look?
• Is Chien-Ming Wang mixing in and improving his secondary pitches?
• Is Edwar Ramirez having success spotting his fastball?

This approach gives me something to look at beyond just a box score and raw numbers without context like “Earned Runs” which are mostly useless in Spring Training.

So when the Daily News says that Wang had a dismal outing because he gave up 4 runs in 4.1 innings in a Spring Training start they’re not being fully honest. What I took away from Wang’s pitching is that he is working very hard on his slider and change and that he is starting to have some success with them. He was able to get outs with both, which leads me to think he might be able to break out of the sinker-sinker-sinker formula this year. And that would be great.

Spring Training stats are pretty meaningless (Baseball Prospectus recently published an article about this), so don’t get caught up in them. This time of year it’s best to take a scout’s eye view.