We’ve been having a great time up here in Boston. Our basketball team, the Boston Celtics (perhaps you’ve heard of them) just won the NBA championship last night by tearing the Lakers of Los Angeles limb from limb, burning their villages and abducting their women, who, let’s face it, were only too happy to be saved from their unsatisfying unions with the Tinseltown hoopsters. Earlier this year, our football team, the New England Patriots, made a bid for NFL history, winning an unprecedented 18 games in one season before appearing in the Super Bowl for the fourth time since 2001. (Somehow, I can’t quite remember what happened in the Super Bowl itself. Let’s just move on.) And of course, back in the fall, our major league baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, won its second World Series of the past four seasons. Boston these days is naught but trilling laughter, babbling waterfalls, and frolicking unicorns. (And gloating.)

Alas, our good friends to the south have not been so lucky. New York once had a basketball team. This was replaced some months ago by a sexual harassment boondoggle, and the Knickerbockers (as I believe they were called) have not been heard from since. Their football teams have had mixed success. One team, the Jets, has a fixation with videotaping rivaled only by Paris Hilton’s. The other team, the Giants, has fared better—but again, I’m suddenly drawing a blank about what actually happened with them last season. Strange. And finally, their two baseball teams have also left something to be desired. The Metropolitans recently suffered an embarassing front-office meltdown after suffering a humiliating sub-.500 start after suffering a truly mortifying collapse at the end of last season. And the Yankees—oh, the Yankees. Long looked to as the balm to soothe the frighted souls of tortured New York sports fans, the Yankees are currently only adding to the angst along the Hudson. Is there any hope that the Yankees will turn things around in time to save their city? Let’s take a look.

Their starting pitching has been bad, ranking towards the middle-bottom of the league in nearly every statistical category. Their defensive efficiency is in the bottom third of MLB. They’ve been beset by injuries. All of these were entirely predictable, but what has surprised so far is that their offense, while still one of the top five offenses in the AL, has not been enough this year to get them out of third place behind the Red Sox and the Rays.

So what do they need?

The obvious place to start is with their starting pitching, which has been inconsistent and injury-ravaged. Now, with ace Chien Ming Wang on crutches for the next six weeks, Yankees fans are anticipating a trade. At Yankees Chick, Maureen has an open letter to CC Sabathia. At River Ave Blues, Mike has a rundown of some other possibilities, acknowledging that the price for CC may be too high. Certainly, acquiring a durable, dominant starter would give the Yankees a huge boost and would set them for the postseason, where having a one-two punch in one’s pitching rotation is de rigeur.

But they may want to take a more conservative approach. After all, Mike Mussina is having a very good year. Andy Pettitte has actually been pitching better than you think he’s been pitching, thanks to a lousy BABIP. Joba Chamberlain’s transition to the starting rotation has been very promising. And Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy certainly have time to come off the DL and contribute. In fact, the Yankees are still so convinced of Hughes’ enormous potential, he’s still considered “untouchtable” in any trade deal.

Finally, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, Carl Pavano is set to return in August. Now, no one in New York wants to count on Carl Pavano. And I freely admit that the concept of hanging your postseason hopes on a man with scarcely more than 100 innings of work since 2005—the man who once went on the DL with a bruised ass, for crying out loud—does have an air of the ridiculous about it. But it’s not like he’s Matt Clement. If the Yankees do decide they simply must acquire a starter, it might be a better move just to go for a relatively cheap innings-eater than spend a lot of prospects on a mid-season replacement for Wang.

Because while acquiring a Sabathia-level starting pitcher would certainly be an enormous boost to the team’s outlook, the Yankees still have a good shot at getting to the playoffs without making any moves at all (advancing is anther story). Keep in mind that their offensive attack has also been blunted by injuries. There was an uncharacteristic stint on the DL for Alex Rodriguez, an all-too-predictable injury to aging catcher Jorge Posada, and day-to-day aches and pains for Derek Jeter. Jason Giambi was, for much of the start of the season, mired in a terrible slump. Johnny Damon also began rather anemically. All of this combined for a slow start by the vaunted Yankee offense—emphasis on “slow.” The Bombers have never been known for their speed, and so far this year Yankee baserunners have been even slower than usual. (Cashman really ought to pick up a few defensively-minded speedsters to come off the bench.)

However, the Yankee offense is clicking on all cylinders at the moment, pounding their foes with 29 runs over their last three games. Have they turned a corner? Perhaps.

But I’m not entirely convinced. Because so far this season, despite scoring a lot of runs and hitting a lot of extra-base hits, the Yankees rank 9th in the AL in walks, tied with the Indians and just above the Baltimore Orioles. The four teams below them include notoriously free-swinging teams such as the Angels and Royals. Last year, the Yankees finished third in the league in walks. So for New York’s offensive outburst to stick, their hitters are going to need, in the immortal words of Axl Rose, just a little paaaaatience, yeeaaaaaaahhhh.

And that might not be such a bad attitude where their pitching situation is concerned, if the only option is a half-season rental that ends up costing them key prospects. Indeed, patience could be just the ticket, given that New York can unload a number of contracts at the end of this season if they so choose, including those of the aforementioned Mssrs Pavano, Giambi, Pettitte, and Abreu.

-What They Need Index-

I’m not sure which of these three things is the most ludicrous:

1. Jeff Kent returning to Los Angeles having exercised his one-year/$9m option after expressing despair and incredulity over the younger Dodger players and “why they don’t get it”. Good luck mending those fences, Jeff. It’s uh… gonna be awkward. At least the money’s good.

2. Paul Lo Duca telling the press that his new team, the Washington Nationals, has a chance to win (the) division. Like, this year. From what I understand, he was being completely serious. For real.

3. One of our favorites, Mr. Carl Pavano - the $40 million man - being asked by the Yankees to accept a minor-league deal. This is just pure schadenfreude on my part, I know. But I can’t help it.

For those of you who missed it (where the hell were you?), last week, we here at UmpBump nominated 27 deserving men to be the first ever recipients of The Douchies, an award that finally recognizes the douchiness of certain individuals employed by Major League Baseball. Close to 500 of you cast a total of 1746 votes in our four categories and I have to say, some of the results were surprising.

So here they are! Your winners of the 1st Annual Douchie Awards!

The Reggie Jackson Award for Best Display of Attention Grabbing is named after a man who has attained mythical stature as an attention-whore during his playing career. He was the forebearer to the modern, preening baseball player, putting the size of the contract ahead of most anything else. This award will be presented to the person who best personified Mr. Jackson’s penchant to run after the spotlight no matter what cost.

And the winner is…

Read the rest of this entry »

As the NYTimes reports, Pavano is the Yankees’ only choice.

TAMPA, Fla., March 24 — The side effect of Chien-Ming Wang’s hamstring injury, which will land him on the disabled list to start the season, is an idea so preposterous it seems hard to fathom: Carl Pavano could be the Yankees’ opening day starter April 2.

[...]

“It’s opening day, but there’s 161 other games,” Torre said at Legends Field, after the Yankees played to a 4-4 tie with the Toronto Blue Jays. “It certainly is an important game, but so are the other ones.”

Torre doesn’t want to alter the schedule for Mussina, and the other two possibilities are not necessarily better choices than Pavano. Andy Pettitte hasn’t started in a few weeks after complaining of neck spasms (that’s what happens when you max out on the bench, Andy).

The other option, Kei Igawa, has never pitched in the majors. But wait, what about the Fifth starter? Don’t the Yankees have one? Well, it just so happens that their schedule allows Joe Torre to have a four-man rotation for the first 17 games.

So who else but Pavano, who, as the Irony-laden Times’ report reminds us, would be pitching on 643 days’ rest.

It sure speaks volumes of what this disgruntled pitcher has have to endure that the Yankee-loving NYTimes, smelling the irony of it all, plasters it all over the lede of the story.

Then again, it might be the shot Pavano needs to make nice with NY fans and media. I’ll tell you what, he’ll have our support, lest we post some more bad news about him here and get the usual dump-load of filthy comments that accompany those posts. It’s becoming a nasty umpbump tradition.

Oh and another side effect to Wang’s injury? Proof of my total incompetence in pulling a successful fantasy baseball draft.

Yankees SP Carl Pavano is hoping that this year will be better than last. But he still hasn’t put all of his 2006 mistakes behind him.

Last September we told you Pavano was in a car crash in which he broke two ribs. Pavano, being the master of public relations that he is, initially didn’t report the crash to the Yankees and instead pretended like nothing had happened. But, once he took the mound, he realized he couldn’t pitch and was forced to fess up.

Today, the New York Daily News is reporting that the other driver involved in that crash is suing Pavano and the Yankees. From the Daily News:

Ernest DeLaura, 47, also named the Yankees as a defendant when he filed the lawsuit 2 months ago in Bronx state Supreme Court. Although the suit was brought in New York, DeLaura lives in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and the accident occurred in West Palm Beach, Fla.

DeLaura sought an unspecified amount of money in the lawsuit, which requested a default judgment of $5 million if Pavano and the Yankees failed to answer the complaint. DeLaura already has undergone shoulder surgery and faces a possible operation on his neck, said his lawyer, Paul Edelman.

Pavano was scratched from his start last night for personal reasons. Doubtful this suit will do much to further his relationship with Yankees ace Mike Mussina, or with the rest of his teammates for that matter.

Then again, it probably couldn’t hurt the burgeoning modeling career of Pavano’s fiance, Gia Allemand, who was sitting next to him in his Porsche on that ill-fated autumn evening. Allemand has quite a following here at Umpbump, and she is currently entered into Maxim Magazine’s “Hometown Hotties” contest, which she is destined to win since, as her grandfather would gladly tell you, “She is a hottie!” Winning that contest would put Gia one step closer to her ultimate goal: doing the nasty with Derek Jeter.

Meanwhile, the fashion design career of another of Pavano’s ex-lovers is kicking into high gear. Alyssa Milano, formerly of Who’s the Boss? and Charmed fame, has reached a deal with MLB to sell her line of MLB-themed clothing aimed at women and girls. As part of the deal, her clothes will be available in 11 ballparks as well as outside retailers.

Milano’s clothes aren’t popular with everyone here at Umpbump, but something tells me she’ll do just fine.